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The Influence of Illegal Immigrants on Health Care Economics in the United States
Jamison K Conopa
HSC/440
March 7, 2016
John Branner

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The Influence of Illegal Immigrants on Health Care Economics in the United States
There are many opinions on how much it costs the United States to provide medical care for
illegal immigrants. This issue has been a controversy within most states for years. If American
health care facilities quits treating illegal immigrants, how much of a cost difference will it make
to the health care industry? Being able to gather data on these costs can be difficult. Hospitals
and community health do not usually ask patients what their legal status is. Hospitals are
required to treat any person who is having a medical emergency whether they are covered by
health insurance or not. Hospitals are also required to take in a certain amount of charity cases
per year. Should charity cases include illegal immigrants or should it be exclusively for
American citizens? Health care reform is supposed to make available affordable health insurance
for everyone who cannot afford insurance on their own. Illegal immigrants can get emergency
aid through Medicaid, but they are not allowed to receive preventative, managed, or nonemergency care benefits. Finding out much it really does cost to treat illegal immigrants is not as
easy as it sounds.
The United States was a nation that was built on immigration. The immigrants that helped
build America to what it is today were legal immigrants. That means that they came to this
country through legal channels. Illegal immigrants are breaking the law by not going through the
correct channels to be here. Employers hire illegal immigrants because they do not have to pay
them as much money, they do not pay payroll taxes, or offer these workers any benefits. The
economic impact that illegal immigrants cost is most felt in hospital settings. As a result of this
there has been several hospitals in the Los Angeles area that have had to close their emergency
departments and even close the entire hospital due to uncompensated care. There is also the fact
that some illegal immigrants are infected with infectious diseases that were eradicated in the

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United States earlier. Some of these infectious diseases that are showing back up in America is
pertussis, mumps, measles, and tuberculosis (Azzariti, 2012).
Although the new health care reform act excludes providing benefits to illegal
immigrants, there I no way to enforce this rule. The House Ways and Means Committee did not
pass proposed amendment that would require individuals to verity legal status when applying for
public benefits. Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) is a program that is used
by other federal programs to determine legal status. When applying for federal and state funded
insurance, the program does not require that the individuals prove that they are in the United
States legally. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that only ten percent of all costs for
treating illegal immigrants is only $4.3 billion annually. To allow illegal immigrants to
participate in the affordability health care, approximately seven million people, the bill could be
as high and $30 billion (Carlsruh, 2009).
There were an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States in 2013. The
cost of these illegal immigrants to the tax payers is approximately $346 billion per year. One on
the sectors that is feeling exactly what the cost is, is the United States Health Care System. The
estimated cost to treat uninsured illegal immigrants at all levels of government is $4.3 billion a
year. These estimates are mainly free clinics and emergency rooms. This amount does not take
into consideration the amounts of absorbed costs by hospitals that provide inpatient care. Patients
who do not have insurance who are not able to go to rehabilitation centers can end up staying
months at a hospital as an inpatient. The hospitals are not allowed to discharge them if they have
no family, no place to go, and are not able to fully take care of themselves. Nursing and
rehabilitation centers do not have to accept them if they do not have insurance. These are termed
permanent patients (Ashbury, 2013).

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There is no easy solution to control the rising cost of health care. Although every person
should have the right to health care, the government cannot offer free medical care to all people
living in America, whether legally or illegally. This controversy will continue on because there
will always be people living in the United States illegally.

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References:
Ashbury, N. (2013, May). The Cost of Permanent Patients. NewsMax, (), .
Retrieved from http://newsmax.com/Finance/NealAsbury/Immigration-healthcare-illegalemergency/2013/05/09
Azzariti, J. (2012, October). Impact of Illegal Immigration on Health Care. Econ18, (), .
Retrieved from http://eco18.com/impact-of-illegal-immigration-on-healthcare/
Carlsruh, S. (2009, September). Illegal Immigrant Health Care. Accuracy in Media, (), .
Retrieved from http://aim.org/briefing/illegal-immigrant-health-care/