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Study criticizes standard of health care spending on illegal immigrants |
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Written by Theresa Maher
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Wednesday, 14 March 2007 |
A new study published in the journal of the American Medical Association reveals that most of the money spent on illegal immigrants by government health care is for childbirth costs and pregnancy complications. The study added that less than one percent of the total Medicaid funds were spent for the health care of illegal immigrants.
The study, conducted by Dr. Annette DuBard of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is totally contradictory to general belief that providing government health care to illegal immigrants is a big burden for tax payers.
The issue of illegal immigrants has been slowly turned into a political issue with political leaders taking its advantage to gain political mileage. One of the most important topics of the debate has always been the issue of tax payers shelling out money for immigrants' health care. However DuBard believes that the study has now shown that it is not at all a burden on tax payers' money.
"This challenges a fairly common public perception that somehow immigrants are placing a very large burden on the Medicaid budget", said Dr. DuBard. She added that the main issue here was not how much money was spent on the health care of illegal immigrants, but in what way was it being spent.
"It is not that we are spending so much through Medicaid on health care for immigrants. It's that we are spending it at the wrong end of care", DuBard said. According to Centre of Immigration Studies, there were over 8 million illegal immigrants in the country in 2003.
As per the law, illegal immigrants as well as legal immigrants who have not resided in the country cannot apply for Medicaid. However the law makes an exception for health emergencies to people who are pregnant, children, families with dependent children and elderly or disabled individuals.
According to the study, around 48,000 immigrants were the recipients of Medicaid's emergency spending of more than $185 million in North Carolina during 2001 to 2004. Over 99 percent of those applied were illegal immigrants. Around 93 percent of those applied were Hispanic and 95 percent of the immigrants were women.
The study adds that since illegal immigrants were not getting access to regular check-ups or routine medical care, most of the cases fall under the emergency categories such as appendicitis and injuries and serious complications of chronic illnesses like kidney and heart disease.
Dr DuBard said that funds could be saved in the long run if illegal immigrants were given access to preventive care, prenatal care, contraceptives and chronic disease management programs. By providing such routine health care access, there will be less of a need to spend on costly emergency care, she added.
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