Thread: Ma. Illegals’ medical bills top $35.7M Taxpayers hit hard

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$35 million in emergency healthcare spent on illegal aliens in Massachusetts alone


Bankrupting the American people...one ER visit at a time
Photo: USAToday

Under legal order from the Massachusetts Secretary of State, Gov. Deval Patrick’s office just released figures announcing that $35.7 million in free emergency health care has been spent so far this year on 52,000 illegal aliens.

Massachusetts taxpayers paid $13.7 million of the cost, while federal Medicaid picked up $22 million.

Additionally, the data shows that an astounding 69 percent of the state’s MassHealth Limited subscribers are actually illegal aliens who have received $33.8 million in taxpayer-funded in-patient hospital treatment this year alone.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), told the Boston Herald: “Incorporating illegal immigrants into any type of government-sponsored health care is legitimizing their presence here. It’s a kind of piecemeal amnesty.’’

According to the CIS, there are 220,000 illegal aliens now living in Massachusetts.

Along with a host of other crimes, illegal aliens are stealing health care for which the rest of us must pay.

The enormous bills which illegal aliens leave unpaid at American hospitals, leave those hospitals with two choices: They can either distribute those costs among their paying customers, or operate annually at a loss and eventually close their doors.

In 2003, the American Southwest saw 77 hospitals enter bankruptcy due to unpaid medical bills incurred by illegal aliens. Over the last several years, a staggering 84 hospitals in California alone have been forced out of business due to the growing crisis. Hospitals which manage to remain open, pass the unpaid costs onto the rest of us, which translates into more out-of-pocket expenses and higher insurance premiums for Americans.

Everyday, pregnant Mexican and Central American women on the verge of giving birth, make their way across the U.S. border to have their baby in an American hospital. These children become infamous "Anchor Babies" so prized by their criminal parents. Once the child is born on American soil, he or she instantly attains U.S. citizenship. Not only are the parents almost always allowed to stay, but since they have no income, the baby is eligible for welfare, WIC, Food Stamps, etc.--all at the expense of the great American taxpayer.

At one of North Carolina’s Goshen Medical Centers, nursing assistant Jessica Roberts told USAToday in 2008, about an illegal alien who arrived more than eight months pregnant with her eighth child.

There are 350,000 of these so-called Anchor Babies born in the U.S. every year. It is estimated that they consume $118 billion annually in government services.

A 2007 March of Dimes survey placed the average cost of an uncomplicated, vaginal birth in a U.S. hospital at $8,800, with the average cost of a cesarean birth at $11,000.

Of course, these hospitals have no choice but to treat these women along with their newborn babies. However, the bills racked-up in the process always go unpaid.

According to a 2000 report by the United States/Mexico Border Counties Coalition, counties along the Mexican border lost over $800 million in health care services, at least 25 percent of that could be attributed to unpaid bills incurred by illegal aliens.

The American border states currently shoulder the brunt of the burden, for instance the Texas state comptroller estimates illegal aliens cost hospitals $1.3 billion in 2006 alone.

In California, a 2004 study conducted by FAIR (the Federation for American Immigration Reform) placed the now bankrupt state's annual cost for treating illegal aliens at $1.4 billion.

But with the spread of illegal immigration now throughout the U.S., the same such studies in 2005 found that health care costs for illegal aliens in Colorado and Minnesota were $31 million and $17 million, respectively.

In recent years, North Carolina has seen an explosion in the state’s illegal alien population, as well as sky-rocketing medical costs.

According to a University of North Carolina study, one in four new residents to the state from 1990 to 2004 was an illegal alien. The Pew Hispanic Center claims there are now more than 300,000 illegal aliens living in North Carolina.

In 2008, Jeff Spade, vice president of the North Carolina Hospital Association told USAToday: "It's exploded the amount for hospitals, the burden of the uninsured immigrant is huge. It's exploded the amount of work that they have to do."

A March 2007 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association claimed that during the period 2001-2004, emergency Medicaid costs for illegal aliens rose by 28 percent in North Carolina.

Duplin General Hospital in Kanansville, NC, now faces a rather bleak financial future due to the large influx of illegal aliens, and their unpaid medical bills. CEO Harvey Case recently addressed the hospital’s lack of profits, when he said: "We're living off reserves."

U.S. hospitals often seek help for the unpaid bills as well as with transportation back to Mexico from the Mexican Consulate offices. However, the Mexican government rarely even arranges flights for their severely injured citizens to return home.

The illegal alien patient usually ends up staying in the hospital for weeks or months, with the hospital usually paying for a flight home, along with the enormous unpaid bill.

A 2008 New York Times article told the incredible story of a1999 Florida car crash which left Guatemalan national Luis Alberto Jimenez's with severe and permanent physical and mental injuries.

After spending more than $1 million on Jimenez’s treatment, and failed attempts to secure assistance from the government of Guatemala, the Florida hospital eventually paid to fly Jimenez back to his own country.

The incredible part of the story…Jimenez is now suing the Florida hospital, which he now says “falsely imprisonedâ€