Posted on 11/26/2007 1:28:09 PM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I guess we just imagined all those hospitals closed down along the border.
I could have shortened my wait time to mere seconds just by walking in with an ICE hat on...
Yeah, they’re no burden at all on our health care system.
And who paid for this study?
Clearly no one did the study in an ER room at any public hospital.
Valid data from a phone survey of illegals? My RIA.
“I guess we just imagined all those hospitals closed down along the border”
That is right.............they never closed you racist pig!!
: )
I guess they didn’t read this:
http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1/cosman.pdf
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Reuters, who are you going to believe, illegals polled by phone 4 years ago or American hospitals who have said it is a problem. Oh yeah this is Reuters, nevermind......
” was in the Emergency room 3 times the 7 years I lived in Austin Texas.
I could have shortened my wait time to mere seconds just by walking in with an ICE hat on...”
LMBO!
It is amazing...my sister’s friend is a nurse in the ER and she’s told us illegals come in every night who can’t pay.
This story is bogus.
And, if the person can't afford it, that person is covered by Mass Health.
So the above article is hogwash on MA.
It's also hogwash in that many hospital emergency rooms on the Mexican border have closed because they cannot afford the FREE emergency care given to illegals.
bump
I notice the guy leading the study is named Ortega. Do you think he might be biased? Just asking.
So there is no basis for the conclusion. Garbage in. Garbage out.
I spent a Wednesday in the ER not so long ago in a NYC suburban hospital. I was the only person in the ER who was a native born, English-speaking, insured individual. I had to beg for a room to keep my ill husband overnight while I overhead Spanish-speaking patients being given rooms and appointments with social workers for minor ailments. What a crock.
These people should observe the illegals in a natural setting to see their attitude towards resource usage. One illegal in Arizona summarized the attitude very well: “In Mexico, we pay for health. Here it is free.” If any resource is underutilized, it is only for fear of deportation. Amnesty will cause an explosion of welfare costs for health care, housing, food stamps, and racial preferences.
If one illegal gets healthcare for free, was that illegal alien a burden or not? Now, multiply that by 30 million.
My study differs from this POS disinformation effort.
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