As policymakers debate the scope and form of the health care reform package some anti-immigrant voices out there are already clamoring about the negative effects of immigrant participation in our health care system.

In fact, the more people who pay into a system of health insurance, the more everyone benefits. U.S. citizens make up the majority of those who are uninsured, to be specific, 78%, while legal and undocumented immigrants account for 22% of the nonelderly uninsured.

Immigrants do not impose a disproportionate financial burden on the U.S. health care system. According to a July 2009 study in the American Journal of Public Health, immigrants use less medical care, and less expensive care, even when they have health insurance.