A longtime federal fugitive who was an undocumented immigrant cost taxpayers more than $350,000 in healthcare at Miami-Dade hospitals before he died last year, a county investigative report has revealed. The Miami-Dade Office of the Inspector General said the patient was a Colombian who fled the United States in 1983 after a cocaine smuggling conviction but returned under a false name. In 26 visits to the Jackson Health System from 2003 through 2010, his care cost $201,716 — $155,334 in charity care paid by Miami-Dade taxpayers and $46,382 paid by Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor. The man also...
