High Cost of Health Care Sparks Debates On Inclusion Of Health Benefits For Illegal Migrants

January 22, 2008 8:18 a.m. EST

Vittorio Hernandez - AHN News Writer

Washington, DC (AHN) - As the federal government unveiled an economic package designed to pump prime the U.S. economy, the cost of providing economic relief to millions of Americans includes dealing with expensive health care. Like other issues concerning illegal migration, the inclusion of illegal migrants in health care benefits is the subject of hot debates across the nation.

With the large number of illegal migrants, estimated at 12 million, the huge dent they create on the nation's economy, reeling from high prices of oil and the subprime crisis, is prompting a new wave of anti-immigrant sentiment insofar as health care benefits are concerned.

The University of Texas medical unit in Galveston is mulling if it will deny cancer care to illegal migrants after the state comptroller found out the bill for treating illegals reached $1.3 billion in 2006. Oklahoma legislators on May passed a law banning illegal migrants from receiving public benefits, including health care. Nebraska passed a similar bill, while Indiana will make it mandatory for hospitals to declare how much they spent on treating illegal immigrants.

Emergency care is available to them under the Medicaid. But beyond that, undocumented aliens will not receive non-emergency care unless they pay.

The reluctance to extend benefits to illegal migrants is due to the high cost of providing health care services to them. A 2004 study in California by the Federation for American Immigration Reform placed the cost at $1.4 billion a year. Colorado and Minnesota, which commissioned their own surveys in 2005, came up with lesser figures at $31 million and $17 million.

Even the presidential hopefuls are veering away from the issue of extending health care to undocumented migrants because of its political impact on their campaign. Large health care budgets proposed by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards exclude illegal immigrants.

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