Jray

Illegal immigrants not U.S. health care burden: study
Mon Nov 26, 4:14 PM ET


Illegal Latino immigrants do not cause a drag on the U.S. health care system as some critics have contended and in fact get less care than Latinos in the country legally, researchers said on Monday.

Such immigrants tend not to have a regular doctor or other health-care provider yet do not visit emergency rooms -- often a last resort in such cases -- with any more frequency than Latinos born in the United States, according to the report from the University of California's School of Public Health.

The finding from Alexander Ortega and colleagues at the school was based on a 2003 telephone survey of thousands of California residents, including 1,317 undocumented Mexicans, 2,851 citizens with Mexican immigrant parents, 271 undocumented Latinos from countries other than Mexico and 852 non-Mexican Latinos born in the United States.

About 8.4 million of the 10.3 million illegal aliens in the United States are Latino, of which 5.9 million are from Mexico, the report said.

"One recurrent theme in the debate over immigration has been the use of public services, including health care," Ortega's team wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Proponents of restrictive policies have argued that immigrants overuse services, placing an unreasonable burden on the public. Despite a scarcity of well-designed research ... use of resources continues to be a part of the public debate," they said.

The researchers said illegal Mexican immigrants had 1.6 fewer visits to doctors over the course of a year than people born in the country to Mexican immigrants. Other undocumented Latinos had 2.1 fewer physician visits than their U.S.-born counterparts, they said.

"Low rates of use of health-care services by Mexican immigrants and similar trends among other Latinos do not support public concern about immigrants' overuse of the health care system," the researchers wrote.

"Undocumented individuals demonstrate less use of health care than U.S.-born citizens and have more negative experiences with the health care that they have received," they said.

(Reporting by Michael Conlon; Editing by Maggie Fox and Bill Trott)

Print Story: Illegal immigrants not U.S. health care burden: study on Yahoo! News

Lerxst

Study finds immigrants' use of healthcare system lower than expected. LA Times article on the same study. Wonder why this is so buried?

Illegal Immigrant Healthcare May Not Be Costing Taxpayers As Much As Many Believe. Article from a North Carolina study. Pretty interesting.

What I find most interesting is the statement about there not being enough detailed information to substantiate the details of the "illegals are bankrupting healthacare abusing the emergency room" claims. And now we have at least two studies that offer a counter that claim.

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I was so right. And you? Well you were so wrong. You lost. Ha. Ha.

Voidwar

This study is crap.

Who cares whether they use healthcare often or infrequently.

The point is did they pay their way ?

This study is deceptive, as what it looked at is not the same thing as the claims it makes. Who paid for the care is the point, not how often they went in for it.

CaptainCourtesy

Not exactly. If illegal immigrants are using health infrequently, regardless of whether they are paying or not (which the study doesn't discuss, but needs to), they are not the main burden on the health care industry...as is often claimed.

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"Never fear. Him is here" - Captain Chaos (Dom DeLuise), Cannonball Run

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Voidwar

Now you have moved the bar.

They don't need to be the main burden to be a burden.

Lerxst

Void you are taking the point of the study and YOU are moving the bar. One of the main tenets of the war against illegal immigrants focuses on this myth that they are "bankrupting" local healthcare systems. What many of us have contended is that they are not. Do they contribute to the strain on healthcare? Sure. Are they bankrupting it? Absolutely not. This is about breaking down the misleading rhetoric that is poured out on illegal immigrants. Why do you think I consistently challenge you people to true debates on this issue? Because I have studied it far more thoroughly than you have and I know the truth. And truth trumps rhetoric.

It's like the misleading claims of "there are more immigrants using welfare than native."

Voidwar

No, I'm not.

Where did I insert words ? Like Captain Courtesy attempted ?

Describe how I "moved the bar". Captain Courtesy tried it by inserting new conditions, the words in red, in his above post. This means he moved the bar, after the question was addressed. Quote me doing this or retract your assertion.

Thank you for admitting this. Then they are a burden. So your study's title is a falsehood.

You do not know me well enough to make this ad hominem assertion. Since it is an ad hominem, from a poster who uses them rampantly, are you really in the dark about why no one wants to play your little game ?

Unless you have a quote of me saying this, I don't see where its relevant.

hackster

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1423567/posts

Feds cut funds as illegals fill jails
LA Daily
By Troy Anderson
Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - Despite the soaring cost of incarcerating criminal aliens nationwide, the federal government has reduced its reimbursements to state and local governments, two new reports by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found.

California spent $635 million in 2003 to incarcerate criminal aliens in state prisons, but received only $77 million in reimbursements from the federal government, the reports showed. The Los Angeles County jail system spent $55 million housing illegal aliens in 2003, but received only $14 million in reimbursements.

"It's a tremendous burden for the taxpayers of Los Angeles County and we would put the figure more at about $80 million (a year)," Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said Tuesday. "It is a federal problem that is not funded federally. It is funded by the taxpayers of Los Angeles County."

The issue has gained the attention of U.S. senators from California, Arizona and Texas, who are demanding that Washington chip in $6.4 billion to cover the costs of jailing undocumented criminals.

The GAO report estimated the U.S. Bureau of Prisons' costs to incarcerate criminal aliens and reimburse state and local governments rose from $950 million in 2001 to $1.2 billion in 2004, a 14 percent increase. But during that time, federal reimbursements for incarcerating criminal aliens in state prisons and local jails dropped from $550 million to $280 million.

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...ticle_id=42474

Cost of illegals to California $10.5 billion
Analysis shows burden of native-born residents $1,183 per household

Posted: January 21, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

An analysis of recent census data indicates that the presence of illegal aliens in California is costing the state's taxpayers more than $10.5 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration.
The report, written by the Federation of American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, states that even if the tax contributions of illegal aliens are subtracted, state government outlays still amount to nearly $9 billion a year.

The $10.5 billion figure translates into a burden to native-born residents of $1,183 per household.

FAIR notes that the results of the report take into account only state of California costs and do not include the cost of illegal aliens born by the federal government.

The report breaks down the costs of the three main areas of services, education medial care and incarceration.

Based on estimates of the illegal alien population in California and documented costs of K-12 schooling, Californians spend approximately $7.7 billion annually on education for illegal-alien children and for their U.S.-born siblings, says the report. Nearly 15 percent of the K-12 public school students in California are children of illegals.

The report shows uncompensated medical outlays for health care provided to the state's illegal alien population amount to about $1.4 billion a year.

The cost of incarcerating illegal aliens in California's prisons and jails amounts to about $1.4 billion a year. That figure does not include related law enforcement and judicial expenditures or the monetary costs of the crimes that led to their incarceration, the report notes.

FAIR says the total of taxes paid into the system by illegal aliens can be estimated at about $1.6 billion per year.

States the report's executive summary: "The fiscal costs of illegal immigration do not end with these three major cost areas. The total costs of illegal immigration to the state's taxpayers would be considerably higher if other cost areas such as special English instruction, school feeding programs or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal alien workers were added into the equation."

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www.fuzzylogicnews.com

Voidwar

Correction, "the study's title" .

Lerxst

[quote=Voidwar;1057478057]No, I'm not.
Yes you are missing the point of the article. The title may be a bit misleading, the content is not. Illegals are not THE drag on the healthcare system that they are made out to be. Period. You are only addressing the title, not the content. You have not only moved the bar, you have completely thrown it out. You are disregarding the content and message of the article itself to focus on the title. I won't retract my assertion because it is spot on. You are busted, once again, playing hack.

It is certainly misleading. However the articles content, which is what is important, reinforces the fact that illegals are not the burden they are made out to be, and that the anti-illegal crowd often deliberately misrepresents this so as to vilify illegal aliens. So I'll take a misleading title and truth over your sides outright lies and ignorance all day long.

I know enough about you by your posts to make my statement. Your posting history on this subject substantiates what I have said. And the reason you or your cohorts won't play my little game is because you don't like the rules...such as being above board and truthful, dispensing with rhetoric in favor of fact. I can address you ANYTIME you post on this board. You don't like this, don't post. Otherwise get used to it son. You deserve all the attention you get.


Well does anything in my statement say YOU made this assertion? No it does not. I deliberately separated that comment out from the rest so that it would be distinguishable as not deliberately targeting you personally. So your claim of irrelevance is irrelevant.