Medical Costs of Illegal Immigrants

The cost of providing public services, more specifically, healthcare services to illegal immigrants has been a source of debate among politicians and the public for a long time. The cost that United States sacrifices on health care for illegal immigrants is astounding. Medical access for immigrants, both legal and illegal, is relatively easy to obtain though coverage is high (prescriptions, hospital stays, doctor visits, surgeries, etc. are paid for most often by the means of state indigent health care services offering  100%  medical coverage for medical necessities).

A study made by the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition, an American lobbying group, established that U.S. hospitals in the states of Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas, supply at least $200 million a year (2003) in unpaid emergency care to illegal aliens. These are Mexicans coming to the Border States presumably after Mexican hospitals discovered the patient had no health insurance and no money to pay for the medical services. Additional costs of sending Mexicans to U.S. hospitals include transporting the seriously ill by helicopter or ambulance from small border hospitals. This cost averages from $7,000 to $20,000 a trip.

Many states have preferred to supply significant assistance to immigrants, mainly by sharing the costs with the federal government. Regardless of fears of a race to the bottom with states providing as few benefits as possible, nearly every state has opted to maintain TANF (temporary assistance for needy families… or also called one time cash or medical assistance programs, incorporated by most states). The states also offer Medicaid eligibility for immigrants who were previously in the United States when the federal welfare law passed. But even when the costs are covered by the state or local funds, many states have offered help to provide assistance.

Averages of the costs of this health care support for illegal immigrants vary, from agency to agency who conduct these researches pertaining to illegal immigrants. For example, Rand Corp, a nonprofit organization that conducts research on a wide range of issues, states that adult illegal immigrants cost American taxpayers $1.1 billion, or about 1.2 % of the $88 billion spent yearly on publicly funded health care, and these figures are according to the study released in November 2006. They contrast with a study released in 2004 by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an organization that promotes stricter immigration policies, found that supplying medical services to illegal immigrants cost taxpayers $1.4 billion in California alone. Regardless of which research organization provides the statistics, one thing remains clear, illegal immigrants in need of medical provisions are continuing to have a strong effect on the United States economy.

The leaders of this country do not appear to have any form of practical solutions to these additional strains on the US economy. Some say deportation is the only answer. Others say more education will increase these illegal immigrants’ chances at a higher paying job and therefore decrease the amount used to support their health care expenses. Opinions of the people and the leaders of U.S.A. vary.