The national spotlight is on Arizona for doing what the federal government and previous governor refused to do regarding an invasion of illegal aliens bankrupting our state. At an August 2009 health care town hall in Phoenix, legislators said that more than half of Arizona’s $4 billion budget deficit was the result of paying for three areas of services to illegal immigrants: education, health care and incarceration.
What does illegal immigration have to do with your costs and your access to medical care when you need it?
Estimates are that 20 – 40 percent of uncompensated (free) medical services are provided to people in the United States illegally. The actual number may be much higher. Shockingly, hospitals and clinics don’t ask about citizenship.
In both Tucson and Dallas where I have practiced medicine, hospitals are struggling under massive costs of uncompensated medical services for uninsured people who, by federal law, cannot be turned away for lack of insurance or ability to pay.
How much does this uncompensated care actually cost taxpayers? The incredible answer: no one knows. We only have estimates of the costs to taxpayers to treat illegal immigrants because hospitals and public health clinics do not ask for proof of citizenship before providing care.
What are the consequences to taxpaying citizens? Increased cost and reduced access to trauma care. Tucson has lost all but one Level I Trauma Center to serve all of southern Arizona, in large part due to massive, unsustainable losses from uncompensated care. Auto accidents involving overloaded vans of illegal aliens happen regularly in southern Arizona. Injured are flown by air ambulance to University Medical Center’s Trauma Center and treated with state-of-the-art care, all at taxpayer expense.
Uncompensated medical services for illegal immigrants mean higher premiums for all of us due to cost-shifting among all third-party payers. To cover the deficits from “free” medical services it provides, the administration at University Physicians Health System is analyzing how much to increase employee health insurance premiums as of July 1.
Hospitals in Tucson and Dallas also provide uncompensated maternity services to pregnant women here illegally. Their babies then become U.S. citizens entitled to all of the services available for low-income American families – food stamps, WIC, immunizations, office visits, medications, etc. This drives up costs to all of us: higher premiums for private insurance companies, and higher taxes for government insurance like Arizona’s Medicaid.
Professional estimates are that over half of the pregnant women served at Parkland Hospital in Dallas are in this country illegally. With more than 16,000 deliveries a year, Parkland is one of the nation’s busiest maternity prenatal clinics for low-income women to receive free prenatal care, nutrition, medication, birthing classes, child care classes, and free supplies (formula, diapers, bottles, car seats). Taxpayers pay the bills.
How many of these women are legal citizens and how many are not? No one knows. No one asks about citizenship.
It is significant that the four states with the highest number of uninsured patients are the southern border states that also have the highest burden of illegal immigrants: California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
The bottom line is that working, taxpaying, legal citizens are bearing the brunt of the failure of our government officials to document citizenship before providing medical services.
How long before your medical care is delayed or denied because our health systems have collapsed from deficits due to uncompensated medical care?
Arizona’s massive deficit, greatly increased by health care services for illegals, is the canary in the mine, warning of a potential explosion that may collapse the system for all.
Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. is a women’s health specialist based in Tucson, Ariz. She is the 2007 recipient of The Voice of Women award from the Arizona Foundation for Women.