By Autumn Spredemann of The Epoch Times
Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are flooding into U.S. hospitals for treatment and leaving billions in uncompensated health care costs in their wake.
The House Committee on Homeland Security recently released a report illustrating that from the estimated $451 billion in annual costs stemming from the U.S. border crisis, a significant portion is going to health care for illegal immigrants.
With the majority of the illegal immigrant population lacking any kind of medical insurance, hospitals and government welfare programs such as Medicaid are feeling the weight of these unanticipated costs.
Apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the U.S. border have jumped 48 percent since the record in fiscal year 2021 and nearly tripled since fiscal year 2019, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
Last year broke a new record high for illegal border crossings, surpassing more than 3.2 million apprehensions.
And with that sea of humanity comes the need for health care and, in most cases, the inability to pay for it.
In January, CEO of Denver Health Donna Lynne told reporters that 8,000 illegal immigrants made roughly 20,000 visits to the city’s health system in 2023.
The total bill for uncompensated care costs last year to the system totaled $140 million, said Dane Roper, public information officer for Denver Health. More than $10 million of it was attributed to “care for new immigrants,” he told The Epoch Times.
Though the amount of debt assigned to illegal immigrants is a fraction of the total, uncompensated care costs in the Denver Health system have risen dramatically over the past few years.
The total uncompensated costs in 2020 came to $60 million, Mr. Roper said. In 2022, the number doubled, hitting $120 million.
He also said their city hospitals are treating issues such as “respiratory illnesses, GI [gastro-intenstinal] illnesses, dental disease, and some common chronic illnesses such as asthma and diabetes.”
“The perspective we’ve been trying to emphasize all along is that providing healthcare services for an influx of new immigrants who are unable to pay for their care is adding additional strain to an already significant uncompensated care burden,” Mr. Roper said.
He added this is why a local, state, and federal response to the needs of the new illegal immigrant population is “so important.”
Colorado is far from the only state struggling with a trail of unpaid hospital bills.
Dr. Robert Trenschel, CEO of the Yuma Regional Medical Center situated on the Arizona–Mexico border, said on average, illegal immigrants cost up to three times more in human resources to resolve their cases and provide a safe discharge.
“Some [illegal] migrants come with minor ailments, but many of them come in with significant disease,” Dr. Trenschel said during a congressional hearing last year.
“We’ve had migrant patients on dialysis, cardiac catheterization, and in need of heart surgery. Many are very sick.”
He said many illegal immigrants who enter the country and need medical assistance end up staying in the ICU ward for 60 days or more.
A large portion of the patients are pregnant women who’ve had little to no prenatal treatment. This has resulted in an increase in babies being born that require neonatal care for 30 days or longer.
Dr. Trenschel told The Epoch Times last year that illegal immigrants were overrunning healthcare services in his town, leaving the hospital with $26 million in unpaid medical bills in just 12 months.
ER Duty to Care
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986 requires that public hospitals participating in Medicare “must medically screen all persons seeking emergency care … regardless of payment method or insurance status.”
The numbers are difficult to gauge as the policy position of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is that it “will not require hospital staff to ask patients directly about their citizenship or immigration status.”
In southern California, again close to the border with Mexico, some hospitals are struggling with an influx of illegal immigrants.
American patients are enduring longer wait times for doctor appointments due to a nursing shortage in the state, two health care professionals told The Epoch Times in January.
A health care worker at a hospital in Southern California, who asked not to be named for fear of losing her job, told The Epoch Times that “the entire health care system is just being bombarded” by a steady stream of illegal immigrants.
“Our healthcare system is so overwhelmed, and then add on top of that tuberculosis, COVID-19, and other diseases from all over the world,” she said.
A newly-enacted law in California provides free healthcare for all illegal immigrants residing in the state. The law could cost taxpayers between $3 billion and $6 billion per year, according to recent estimates by state and federal lawmakers.
In New York, where the illegal immigration crisis has manifested most notably beyond the southern border, city and state officials have long been accommodating of illegal immigrants’ healthcare costs.
Since June 2014, when then-mayor Bill de Blasio set up The Task Force on Immigrant Health Care Access, New York City has worked to expand avenues for illegal immigrants to get free health care.
“New York City has a moral duty to ensure that all its residents have meaningful access to needed health care, regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay,” Mr. de Blasio stated in a 2015 report.
The report notes that in 2013, nearly 64 percent of illegal immigrants were uninsured. Since then, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants have settled in the city.
“The uninsured rate for undocumented immigrants is more than three times that of other noncitizens in New York City (20 percent) and more than six times greater than the uninsured rate for the rest of the city (10 percent),” the report states.
The report states that because healthcare providers don’t ask patients about documentation status, the task force lacks “data specific to undocumented patients.”
Some health care providers say a big part of the issue is that without a clear path to insurance or payment for non-emergency services, illegal immigrants are going to the hospital due to a lack of options.
“It’s insane, and it has been for years at this point,” Dana, a Texas emergency room nurse who asked to have her full name omitted, told The Epoch Times.
Working for a major hospital system in the greater Houston area, Dana has seen “a zillion” migrants pass through under her watch with “no end in sight.” She said many who are illegal immigrants arrive with treatable illnesses that require simple antibiotics. “Not a lot of GPs [general practitioners] will see you if you can’t pay and don’t have insurance.”
She said the “undocumented crowd” tends to arrive with a lot of the same conditions. Many find their way to Houston not long after crossing the southern border. Some of the common health issues Dana encounters include dehydration, unhealed fractures, respiratory illnesses, stomach ailments, and pregnancy-related concerns.
“This isn’t a new problem, it’s just worse now,” Dana said.
Medicaid Factor
One of the main government healthcare resources illegal immigrants use is Medicaid.
All those who don’t qualify for regular Medicaid are eligible for Emergency Medicaid, regardless of immigration status. By doing this, the program helps pay for the cost of uncompensated care bills at qualifying hospitals.
However, some loopholes allow access to the regular Medicaid benefits. “Qualified noncitizens” who haven’t been granted legal status within five years still qualify if they’re listed as a refugee, an asylum seeker, or a Cuban or Haitian national.
Yet the lion’s share of Medicaid usage by illegal immigrants still comes through state-level benefits and emergency medical treatment.
A Congressional report highlighted data from the CMS, which showed total Medicaid costs for “emergency services for undocumented aliens” in fiscal year 2021 surpassed $7 billion, and totaled more than $5 billion in fiscal 2022.
Both years represent a significant spike from the $3 billion in fiscal 2020.
An employee working with Medicaid who asked to be referred to only as Jennifer out of concern for her job, told The Epoch Times that at a state level, it’s easy for an illegal immigrant to access the program benefits.
Jennifer said that when exceptions are sent from states to CMS for approval, “denial is actually super rare. It’s usually always approved.”
She also said it comes as no surprise that many of the states with the highest amount of Medicaid spending are sanctuary states, which tend to have policies and laws that shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration authorities.
Moreover, Jennifer said there are ways for states to get around CMS guidelines. “It’s not easy, but it can and has been done.”
The first generation of illegal immigrants who arrive to the United States tend to be healthy enough to pass any pre-screenings, but Jennifer has observed that the subsequent generations tend to be sicker and require more access to care. If a family is illegally present, they tend to use Emergency Medicaid or nothing at all.
The Epoch Times asked Medicaid Services to provide the most recent data for the total uncompensated care that hospitals have reported. The agency didn’t respond.
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The affordable care act=cloward and piven on steroids.
Illegals affect a lot of costs. Rents for housing are being impacted. Which affects home prices. These people are living somewhere. Even if they’re occupying the cheapest apartments, that keeps rents aloft and raises prices all the way up to nicer properties. Young people complaining about rents should look in the mirror for tolerating – or outright supporting – an open border. You can’t let 10 million people in in 3 years without it affecting the cost of housing – and a lot of other stuff. It does suppress wages, though, so there’s that.
So the “medical industry”has been mismanaged for YEARS thanks to collectivization,greed and indemnification.
So my retirement as a taxpayer will suffer and services reduced because its MY FAULT??????
Just more socially-separitist horse crap!
Finally, a silver lining.
Those who practice REAL healthcare just need to be prepared to step up and step in when it all collapses…and we all need to be prepared to support and defend them as the government (HHS, FDA, DEA, CDC, etc.) is poised at every moment to protect the criminal monopoly of the current cartel.
Given the mass murders committed by these hospitals over the past 4 years (and for the past 100), it’s hard to feel too sorry.
I love my local hospitals!❤
I worked at a local hospital. They had the same ICU covid treatment protocols as the big city hospitals. I know euthanasia death protocols when i see ’em.
Happening in UK too. Nigerian nignogs with fertility pill triplets fly to UK to get free treatment.
They’ll make up for it by charging YOU more. So, stay away from hospitals if at all possible.
Privatized profits; socialized losses.
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” ― Margaret Thatcher
Just another example of illegals taking the nigger’s benefits.
There’s a reason those Atlanta blacks were lining the boulevard, cheering Trump’s caravan.
It has always been a fight over “most favored minority status.”
Hospitals will close. Doctors will go to a concierge model. Not a bad thing.
Medicine should compete for customers, just like burger joints.
With 2 RNs in our family,we avoid as much modern “health” care as possible. Much of that modern health care is useless. Some of it will kill your ass.
What better way to usher in nationalized health care than to bankrupt the existing system? Universal health care has been a goal of the leftists for many, many years.
Total control – “full-spectrum dominance” – has been the goal of the technocratic bloodline oligarchy for centuries. Socialism is one of their methods, not one of their ends.
‘You are ruling over us for our own good,’ he said feebly. ‘You believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore-‘
He started and almost cried out. A pang of pain had shot through his body. O’Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five.
‘That was stupid, Winston, stupid!’ he said. ‘You should know better than to say a thing like that.’
He pulled the lever back and continued:
‘Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others ; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were- cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?’ ~ 1984
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out.” ~ Karl Rove – attributed).
Pure, amoral, sociopathic ambition.
immoral
Meanwhile, those of us who work for a living can’t afford the new health insurance premiums.
Go on strike. Stop working. Problem solved.
Also, stop “needing” “medicine”. Food is medicine. Stop MAKING yourself sick. Move. Sleep. Put down your iStupid. Interact. Think good thoughts. Have hope. Exult in being alive, as children do. Above all, do not “Trust The Science.” Keep learning. After all, how did the first teacher learn anything?
To be fair the illegals and at least eight of their relatives have to spend a minimum of six hours all over the couches and chairs watching tv while the paying crowd get to at least move into the emergency room proper after a mere three to four hours wait.
(((Cloward-Piven))) is working!
No one with half a brain should be surprised by this. You always get more of what you allow. Yet the sheeple still say oh the border is not a problem. Libs/sheeple have a problem understanding the concept of limited, finite resources. Medical resources are limited. Power for your EVs is limited. Yet they continue to believe the delusion that it will all somehow work out.
It’s not about the amount of resources, it’s about the ownership of those resources.
Rightly they belong to citizens; but we see that they can trivially be taken and given to non-citizens, which means that citizens haven’t really owned them for a good long time.
We are being robbed. Looted. Not by the illegals, but by rapacious government.
Don’t worry though, we can probably fix this by voting just a little harder.
Only chumps-suckers and democrats pay hospital bills.
If your not stiffing ALL mega-corps you are stupid.
FUCK playing by the “rules” !
This SHITBOX NIGGERHOLE is going down !
How are they going to pay all the useless shaniquas and diversity hire ass wipers ?
Print more shekels of course.
Try even getting care as a US citizen without first paying; hospitals will shove your ass out the door. Hell, during Covid even if you were having a heart attack they’d leave you in the parking lot to die if you didn’t wear a mask.
Exactly right. That Act is for the benefit of illegals only. No citizens need apply. If you wanted to try to game the system you need a very convincing act and backstory and brush up on your Espanol.
The solution is not complicated.
#1 Secure the border and deport illegal immigrants
#2 Charge the government of the illegals for the health costs that they receive here
This isn’t rocket science.
immigrants as agents of development 2030 MIGRATION IN THE 2030 AGENDA International Organization for Migration The UN Migration Agency
https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/migration_in_the_2030_agenda.pdf
Hospitals getting rich giving two aspirins to an immi and billing dot gov $500.00.
Wash … rinse … repeat …
This has happened before, especially in California which prides itself on giving anything and everything to illegals … including free medical care that about 10 or so years ago led to a rash of hospital bankruptcies and closures …
How many thousands did hospitals get per Covid diagnosis, and how many more for Covid-related deaths?
What did the hospitals spend that $$$$$$$$$ on?