Immigrants Represent Most of Rise in Numbers of Uninsured By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times, Dateline Washington, June 14, 2005
Immigrants account for most of the increases in U.S. residents without health insurance, according to a study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
While the study did not distinguish between illegal and legal immigrants, estimates are that at least a quarter of all immigrants are undocumented, most from Mexico.
According to Paul Fronstin, director of health research at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, immigrants are likely to be uninsured because "they are disproportionately employed by small businesses. They are uninsured because they have service and agricultural jobs that are less likely to come with benefits."
U.S. hospitals often end up absorbing the costs of caring for uninsured immigrants, because they are required to provide emergency room care to all.
U.S. Is Linking Status of Aliens to Hospital Aid By Robert Pear, The New York Times, Dateline Washington, August 10, 2004
In a new program created under the 2003 Medicare law, the U.S. federal government is offering $1 billion to U.S. hospitals that provide emergency care for illegal immigrants. But to collect the money, the hospitals will be required to provide documentation about their patients' immigration status.
U.S. federal health officials maintain that the information is necessary to make sure the money will be used as Congress intended; that is, for "emergency health services furnished to undocumented aliens."
Some hospital officials are balking at the requirement. They say collecting the information will be difficult, administratively expensive, and may pose a public health problem if the requirements scare off illegals needing care. For example, the foreign-born population accounted for over 50 percent of the new tuberculosis cases reported in 2003, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A 1986 federal law requires hospitals to provide treatment to patients in their emergency rooms, regardless of the patients' ability to pay. But uninsured illegal immigrants have created significant financial burdens on hospitals, especially those located in border states like Texas, Arizona, California, and in states like New York, Illinois and Florida, where many illegal immigrants work and reside.
Over 90% of young adults age 18 to 42 never see a doctor - what the government wants to do is force them to pay 200.00 a month for someone else.
What percentage of illegal aliens would you assume to be uninsured? (Simply stating that in order for you to keep track of your assumptions).
Don’t forget the millions of anchor babies that belong to those millions of illegals. Added together, they may represent the majority of uninsured.
I have heard that there are actually 30 million illegal aliens. which would make only 15 millin citizens uninsured. They throw out OLD numbers out there to make it sound like there isn’t so many of these guys here. There are EMPTY towns in Mexico, and towns where only infants and senior citizens reside waiting for their money to come in from their relatives who have gone to the Norther Frontier to support them.
Census Bureau report “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005,” puts the initial number of uninsured people living in the country at 46.577 million.
A closer look at that report reveals the Census data include 9.487 million people who are “not a citizen.” Subtracting the 10 million non-Americans, the number of uninsured Americans falls to roughly 37 million.
Government statistics also show 45 percent of those without insurance will have insurance again within four months after job transitions.
That’s 20.25 Million in transition between jobs who will have insurance.
So now we’re down to 17 Million without health insurance.
AND remember that according to the Census report, there are 8.3 million uninsured people who make between $50,000 and $74,999 per year and 8.74 million who make more than $75,000 a year.
That’s roughly 17 million people who ought to be able to “afford” health insurance because they make substantially more than the median household income of $46,326.
How many of them are young and healthy and choose not to insure???
Insurance isn’t needed for FReebies. Blackbird.
That makes it sound as though only the group insurances are actually counted as insured.
ML/NJ
Voting for McCain destroys what remains of our sovreignty!