Illegal immigrants not U.S. health care burden: study

Reuters ^

[Sub-Driver]

Illegal immigrants not U.S. health care burden: study Mon Nov 26, 2007 4:14pm EST

CHICAGO (Reuters) - 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.

[brytlea]

The finding from Alexander Ortega and colleagues at the school was based on a 2003 telephone survey

That's all I needed to know...

susie

[Richard Axtell]

Lies don’t have to last very long to have an effect. This is a toss-away fraud, done as more a monkey wrench for the ever gaining trend against illegal immigration, than a rallying point for an ideological movement. Confusion, doubt, and ambivalence in public opinion regarding this very contentious subject are the goals of the survey takers and the article’s author. What is needed is a thorough and substantive analysis of all the current data regarding ER’s, indigent health care funding, etc. to see just what kind of burden illegals are on our systems, health, legal, educational, etc. I suspect we would see a much different outcome from this phony attempt at obfuscation.

[californianmom]

My thoughts exactly. One unpaid visit to an ER by someone here illegally is a burden on citizens. Comparing illegals use of the ER to citizen Latinos makes no sense at all. Count the amount of money spent in caring for illegals—that’s the burden!

[brytlea]

LOL

[afnamvet]

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.

A pre school is doing push polls?

[Rockitz]

I notice the guy leading the study is named Ortega. Do you think he might be biased? Just asking.

In my best John Madden voice- Well, you got this guy named Ortega doing your research at the University of California. Now Ortega is probably a Hispanic surname cause you got your chili peppers and salsa in the grocery store with that name on it and don't get me wrong they're quality products. Anyway he's sayin' that illegal immigrants aren't responsible for the burden on US healthcare, but then you got a lot of illegal immigrants that are, well, Hispanic, so that makes ya think this guy might have a horse in this race. So he writes this research paper so it sounds all official and everything and he makes it look like illegal immigrants aren't responsible for the burden on our healthcare system and "Boom" you got your conflict of interest.

[New Girl]

Here's my "study": I was in the ER at Johns Hopkins last year and I was one of the few non-hispanics in the waiting room. Some of the other patients appeared to be latino construction workers. While I was there, an announcement came over the intercom system asking for Spanish-speaking personnel to report to a particular area of the hospital. From this, one can assume that at least some doctors, nurses and/or technicians were pulled off of their current responsibilities to deal with a non-English speaking immigrant. I'm sure this happens all of the time.

I am wondering how many of our health care professionals are bilingual and prepared to deal with the secondary issue of treating non-English speaking individuals?

[Joan Kerrey]

The finding from Alexander Ortega and colleagues

---

No need to read further

[Exton1]

And who believes anything by Reuters? Plus the trial was rigged. They called people on the phone, instead of looking at actual hospital records. The fact is that hospitals in high illegal immigration areas tend to close.

[abercrombie_guy_38]

This article made me LOL.

Of course illegals go to the doctor less than citizens. They usually go to the ER when they need healthcare...not the local GP!

[Charles Martel]

Illegal Latino immigrants do not cause a drag on the U.S. health care system as some critics have contended...

In one Dallas hospital alone (Parkland Memorial), 70% of births are to illegal alien mothers. I saw that in an e-mail and was suspicious of the article's veracity, but it's listed as "Confirmed" on Snopes. Seven illegal out of every ten maternity patients is a huge drain. It's not exactly a border-region hospital, either, so expect that trend to spread to other cities (especially sanctuary cities).

[sonic109]

The study was run by one, Orlando Ortaga ..Think it’s bussh*t ? I sure do .

[sonic109]

Here are the deans of that college who made this bogas study,
Deans

Dean
Stephen M. Shortell
sph_dean@berkeley.edu

Executive Associate Dean
Thomas Rundall
trundall@berkeley.edu

Associate Dean for Research
Eva Harris
eharris@berkeley.edu

Associate Dean for Public Health
Practice
Jeff Oxendine
oxendine@berkeley.edu

Associate Dean for Student Affairs
Denise Herd
phstdean@berkeley.edu

[org.whodat]

Bull Bovine waste is to deep to walk-in and two thick to swim!

[meyer]

Based on a telephone survey???

"Hello, sir. I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about health care."

"OK"

"First question - Are you an illegal alien??"

"Uh, ...er..., No, of course not!"

"Second question - are you a burden to the health care system?"

"No, I'm not"

"Thank you for your time...."

And there you have it!

[meyer]

"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."

Well, then I suppose they won't have a problem with being cut off from the free ride, eh?

[Exton1]

Alex Ortega, Ph.D.
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/hs/ortega.html
aortega@ucla.edu

[Exton1]

Or the lies themselves
http://reuters-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/reuters_en.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php?p_sid=5nAskKRi&p_lva=&p_li=&p_accessibility=&p_redirect=&p_page=1&p_cv=&p_cats=&p_hidden_prods=&p_new_search=1&p_prod_lvl1=&p_pv=2.47&p_prods=19%2C47&prod_lvl1=19&prod_lvl2=47

[dalereed]

The almost $400 million that the illegals are costing L.a. County every year isn’t a burden?

[Cacique]

Why does this pin my BS meter?