Immigration Policies Fueling Rise in Health Care Costs, Study Finds

Hospitals Struggling to Accommodate
Immigrant Influx

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26, 2004-- Immigration policy is a key factor in the alarming increase in the uninsured and the fiscal crises burdening public health care systems nationwide, according to a new study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

"The Sinking Lifeboat: Uncontrolled Immigration & the U.S. Health Care System" finds that as states cut their health care budgets to try to make ends meet, high rates of immigration are straining the health care system to the breaking point, (CC Note: stats in this commentary include both legal and illegal immigration and do not differentiate between persons here legally and those here illegally)

• One out of every four uninsured people in the United States is an immigrant.

• Almost half of immigrants have either no insurance or have it
  provided to them at taxpayers' expense.

• In some hospitals, as much as two-thirds of total operating costs
  are for uncompensated care for illegal aliens.

• Border hospitals reported losses of almost $190 million in
  unreimbursed costs for treating illegal aliens in 2000, with another $113 million in ambulance fees and follow-up services.

The problem is on the rise: Immigrants (legal and illegal) who arrived between 1994 and 1998 and their children accounted for 59 percent of the growth in the size of the uninsured population in the
last ten years.

The increase in uncompensated care for immigrants has forced some hospitals to reduce staff, increase rates, cut back services, and close maternity wards and trauma centers.

"At a time when we are already struggling to provide affordable care to millions of uninsured residents, President Bush's immigration proposal would bring in hundreds of thousands more uninsured -- and officially sanction a massive illegal population already here and already draining health care funds from struggling communities," says FAIR executive director Dan Stein.

"Politicians seeking solutions to the health care crisis in America must adopt the most elemental principle of the medical profession: 'First, do no harm,'" Stein said. "Our immigration policies are doing incalculable harm to millions of people who are trying to protect their health and the health of their families. Instead of proposing to spend more money that they haven't got to remedy a problem that grows bigger by the day, American politicians must examine some of the underlying causes for the health care crisis in this country, including our immigration policies. We can't simultaneously cure the problem while we're adding to it."


Source: Federation for American Immigration Reform