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Illegal Immigration & Healthcare

Illegal Immigration & Healthcare. By: Jon Stephen Donaldson. Is This an Issue?. Fear associated with doctors visits Increasing numbers of uninsured Taking beds away from citizens Cost of Health Care. Fearing Health Care.

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Illegal Immigration & Healthcare

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  1. Illegal Immigration & Healthcare By: Jon Stephen Donaldson

  2. Is This an Issue? • Fear associated with doctors visits • Increasing numbers of uninsured • Taking beds away from citizens • Cost of Health Care

  3. Fearing Health Care • There is some truth to this, at the JPS Health Center in Tarrent county, Ft. Worth Texas foreign born patients are required to show proof of legal immigration paperwork before receiving financial assistance for non-emergancies. • They believed their first responsibility was to legal residents. • “Whenever immigrants go to the hospital, the first thing they are asked is, ‘Who are you and where are your immigration papers?’ ” said José Aguilar, a leader of Allied Communities of Tarrant, a coalition of church-based community groups that has pressured the JPS board to reverse its policy. “They are being scared away.”

  4. Increase of Uninsured • 43% of immigrants under 65 are uninsured or 9.4 million immigrants, majority are illegal residents, are uninsured. • They make up 15% of the total uninsured in the country. • The estimated cost of unreimburst medical care to illegals in Texas is $850 million.

  5. Taking Away Beds • Immigrant use of emergency hospital services • The utilization rate of hospitals by illegal aliens is 29% • Double that of legal resident’s 11%

  6. State Funding for the Uninsured • Texas plans to initiate a charity fund for the uninsured. • State comptroller estimates illegal aliens cost hospitals $1.3 billion • Effectively sucking dry any charity fund. • Massachusetts initiated a state wide health care. • 94% already had health care • In Texas only 74% have health care

  7. Solution? • With an estimated over 1.6 million illegal immigrants in Texas there is no perfect or absolute solution. • Begin at the borders • Stopping the flow of illegal aliens could stop the rising numbers of uninsured

  8. Ethical Dilemma • Can hospitals turn away patients in need because they are not legal residents? • Its is tough, but I say yes • Illegal residents should not be able to receive non-emergency care. • Emergency care should be at a bare minimum and require some sort of down payment for failure to produce proof of legal status. • Financial support for the uninsured should only be able to be used by legal residents.

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