Illegal Immigrants Overrun Arizona's Emergency Rooms
Written by Daniel Sayani
Thursday, 24 February 2011 15:18


One of the most significant issues to arise in the immigration debate is the question of illegal immigrants utilizing taxpayer-funded social and human services that they are not legally entitled to, and that they do not contribute to, as illegal immigrants do not pay taxes that are used to finance such programs.

The state of Arizona, known for taking a tough stance in favor of the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution in its legislation that seeks to defend its borders from the constant onslaught of illegal immigrants who violate its laws by illicitly entering the state of Arizona, has once again demonstrated to be taking effective, common-sense measures towards remedying the enormous legal and fiscal challenges wrought by unrestrained illegal immigration.

As part of a slew of legislative measures introduced this week in the Arizona State Legislature — including SB 1611, that protects Arizona’s public education system by keeping out illegal alien students —Arizona is also protecting the solvency and integrity of its healthcare system. Like education, health care is a government service that has been hit hard by illegal immigration; states such as Arizona and California can no longer afford to educate and provide unlimited medical treatment for illegal immigrants, who do not financially contribute to these government services. Both Arizona and California have incurred enormous budget deficits as a result of unabashed illegal immigration, and the associated drain on governmental agencies, schools, and hospitals.

In response to these economic challenges and the continued violation of immigration laws, Arizonan state legislators have introduced legislation that would curb illegal immigrants’ unlawful and unsustainable use of hospitals and emergency rooms as sources of free health care and medical treatment, a national epidemic that has resulted in the closure of numerous hospitals and the near-bankruptcy of several state-run health insurance programs. These activities have resulted in a lack of healthcare for legal, taxpaying citizens in need of medical treatment, as well as longer delays, subpar quality of medical services and treatments, and reduced access to critical programs and services. The Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR) issued a research report exploring the full scope of this crisis plaguing the American healthcare delivery system:

'Immigrants are often uninsured and underinsured. Forty-three percent of noncitizens under 65 have no health insurance. That means there are 9.4 million uninsured immigrants, a majority of whom in the country illegally, who constitute 15 percent of the total uninsured in the nation in the mid-1990s. The cost of the medical care of these uninsured immigrants is passed onto the taxpayer, and strains the financial stability of the health care community.
Another problem is immigrants’ use of hospital and emergency services rather than preventative medical care. For example, utilization rate of hospitals and clinics by illegal aliens (29 percent) is more than twice the rate of the overall U.S. population (11 percent).
As a result, the costs of medical care for immigrants are staggering. The estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care in 2004 in California was about $1.4 billion per year. In Texas, the estimated cost was about $ 8.5 billion, and in Arizona the comparable estimate was $4 billion per year.'

The problem is succinctly described by the following authorities on the subject:

“What is unseen is their [illegal aliens’] free medical care that has degraded and closed some of America’s finest emergency medical facilities, and caused hospital bankruptcies: 84 California hospitals are closing their doors,â€