Thread: Debate Rages Over Illegals' Health Care

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Debate Rages Over Illegals' Health Care
November 30th, 2007 @ 6:41am
by Bob McClay and Jon Zimney/KTAR

Arizona's illegal immigrants' population leads the nation, and health insurance is shaping up to be a major issue in the debate.

Mark Krikorian directs the Center for Immigration Policy in Washington, which did a new study based on U.S. Census Figures. It found that that illegal immigrants make up a little under one-third of the total immigration population in the country, but about twice that number in Arizona.

``Among illegals in Arizona, 69 percent had no health insurance," Krikorian said. ``And what's most remarkable is that in Arizona, illegal immigrants and their American-born children accounted for 37 percent -- that's almost four out of 10 -- of all the people in the state who don't have health insurance."

There are differing opinions about the impact of illegal immigrants on the health care system. A survey by the University of California School of Public Health concluded that illegal Latino immigrants do not cause a drag on the system.

Phoenix attorney Daniel Ortega agrees with that survey.

``I think it confirms what many of us in the community believe, that the use of services is generally not the kind of thing that people who are here without documents make access to," Ortega said.

But, Dr. Michael Christopher, medical director of the Emergency Department at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, said that's a ``ridiculuous argument."

``I just know that in my hospital, we have millions and millions of dollars a year that are spent in care for non-citizens, and those funds would be utilized otherwise for our citizenry," he said.

``They need services, they tend to wait until their illness is more advanced, they come in and they're sicker," Christopher said. ``They have no choice, that's why they're in the emergency department in the first place."

He said the health care burden is another sign that American needs to secure its borders.

Ortega counters that the medical profession uses illegal immigrants as an excuse to its real problem of too few hospitals and too few doctors to serve the American public.

``Take those people out of the equation who are immigrants and who may not be here with legal documentation, the health care system already has a problem and it has a problem that it can't solve," he said. ``If you take credible studies like this one, we're convinced, the way we always have been, that immigrants do more for this economy and take less than they put in. I'm not saying they don't take, I'm just saying they take less than they put in."

The University of California study was based on a 2003 telephone survey of California residents, including more than 1,300 undocumented natives of Mexico living in the U.S.

http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=659795

Absolutely, we have problems in our healthcare system.

Putting millions of illegals onto the system causes problems.

They didn't just start using our healthcare system last month, it has been going on for years and it has partly caused the crisis.

Bull ... if this were true, then why are hospitals closing all over America due to bankruptcy from services rendered but not paid.