Immigration and healthcare

Providing Healthcare to illegals would add billions of dollars to nation’s medical tab

By Steven A. Camarota
Monday, October 5, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Immigration and healthcare are not only two of the most contentious issues we face, they are very much related.

If we look at illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children, they account for one in six people without health insurance in America. If we actually enforced our immigration laws and encouraged more illegal immigrants to return home, we could significantly reduce the size of the uninsured population, save taxpayers money, and free up healthcare dollars for legal immigrants and native-born Americans who need care.

Most estimates show that some 60 percent of illegal immigrants do not have health insurance. The underlying reason illegal immigrants don’t have insurance is their much lower average level of education. Research indicates that 80 percent of illegal immigrants have no more than a high school education. These “less-educatedâ€