[lit-ideas] Re: Immigration
- From: Eternitytime1@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:37:57 EST
In a message dated 3/26/2006 5:31:19 P.M. Central Standard Time,
robert.paul@xxxxxxxx writes:
Eric wrote:
> Illegals get into the health system easily. A chronic problem like
> diabetes is a shoe-in. They get Medicare/Medicaid and most health
> providers don't ask questions
Hi,
I would have to check on this...I think one of the biggest issues here is
the use of emergency rooms by those who are here illegally.
Best,
Marlena
Illegal Immigration and Public Health
The impact of immigration on our public health is often overlooked. Although
millions of visitors for tourism and business come every year, the foreign
population of special concern is illegal residents, who come most often from
countries with endemic health problems and less developed health care. They are
of greatest consequence because they are responsible for a disproportionate
share of serious public health problems, are living among us for extended
periods of time, and often are dependent on U.S. health care services.
Public Health Risks
Because illegal immigrants, unlike those who are legally admitted for
permanent residence, undergo no medical screening to assure that they are not
bearing contagious diseases, the rapidly swelling population of illegal aliens
in
our country has also set off a resurgence of contagious diseases that had
been totally or nearly eradicated by our public health system.
According to Dr. Laurence Nickey, director of the El Paso heath district â
Contagious diseases that are generally considered to have been controlled in
the United States are readily evident along the border ... The incidence of
tuberculosis in El Paso County is twice that of the U.S. rate. Dr. Nickey also
states that leprosy, which is considered by most Americans to be a disease of
the Third World, is readily evident along the U.S.-Mexico border and that
dysentery is several times the U.S. rate ... People have come to the border for
economic opportunities, but the necessary sewage treatment facilities, public
water systems, environmental enforcement, and medical care have not been made
available to them, causing a severe risk to health and well being of people
on both sides of the border.â1
âThe pork tapeworm, which thrives in Latin America and Mexico, is showing up
along the U.S. border, threatening to ravage victims with symptoms ranging
from seizures to death. ... The same [Mexican] underclass has migrated north
to
find jobs on the border, bringing the parasite and the sicknessâcysticercosis
âits eggs can cause[.] Cysts that form around the larvae usually lodge in
the brain and destroy tissue, causing hallucinations, speech and vision
problems, severe headaches, strokes, epileptic seizures, and in rare cases
death.â2
The problem, however, is not confined to the border region, as illegal
immigrants have rapidly spread across the country into many new economic
sectors
such as food processing, construction, and hospitality services.
Typhoid struck Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1992 when an immigrant from the
Third World (who had been working in food service in the United States for
almost two years) transmitted the bacteria through food at the McDonaldâs
where
she worked. River blindness, malaria, and guinea worm, have all been brought
to Northern Virginia by immigration.3
"By default, we grant health passes to illegal aliens. Yet many illegal
aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long
ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio,
dengue, and Chagas disease."
âWhat is unseen is their [illegal aliensâ] free medical care that has
degraded and closed some of Americaâs finest emergency medical facilities,
and
caused hospital bankruptcies: 84 California hospitals are closing their
doors.â
âMadeleine Peiner Cosman, Ph.D., Esq. âIllegal Aliens and American
Medicine,
â Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Spring 2005
Contrary to common belief, tuberculosis (TB) has not been wiped out in the
United States, mostly due to illegal migration. In 1995, there was an outbreak
of TB in an Alexandria high school, when 36 high-school students caught the
disease from a foreign student.4 The four greatest immigrant magnet states
have over half the TB cases in the U.S.5 In 1992, 27 percent of the TB cases
in
the United States were among the foreign-born; in California, it was 61
percent of the cases; in Hawaii, 83 percent; and in Washington state, 46
percent.
The Queens, New York, health department attributed 81 percent of new TB
cases in 2001 to immigrants.
Costs of Medical Care
Immigrants are often uninsured and underinsured. Forty-three percent of
noncitizens under 65 have no health insurance. That means there are 9.4 million
uninsured immigrants, a majority of whom are in the country illegally,
constituting 15 percent of the total uninsured in the nation in the
mid-1990s.6 The
cost of the medical care of these uninsured immigrants is passed onto the
taxpayer, and strains the financial stability of the health care community.
Another problem is immigrantsâ use of hospital and emergency services rather
than preventative medical care. For example, utilization rate of hospitals
and clinics by illegal aliens (29 percent) is more than twice the rate of the
overall U.S. population (11 percent).7
As a result, the costs of medical care for immigrants are staggering. The
estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care in 2004 in California was about
$1.4
billion per year. In Texas, the estimated cost was about $.85 billion, and
in Arizona the comparable estimate was $.4 billion per year.8
One of the frequent costs to U.S. taxpayers is delivery of babies to illegal
alien mothers. A California study put the number of these anchor baby
deliveries in the state in 1994 at 74,987, at a cost of $215 million. At that
time,
those births constituted 36 percent of all Medi-Cal births, and they have
grown now to substantially more than half or the annual Medi-Cal budget. In
2003, 70 percent of the 2,300 babies born in San Joaquin General Hospitalâs
maternity ward were anchor babies. Medical in 2003 had 760,000 illegal alien
beneficiaries, up from 2002, when there were 470,000.9
Endnotes
1. Statement on behalf of the American Medical Association to the
Committee on Public Works and Transportation, U.S. House of Representatives,
May
7, 1991.
2. Houston Chronicle, November 3, 1992.
3. Influx of Exotic Diseases Keep Doctors Hopping,â Fairfax Journal,
May 8, 1992.
4. "Health officials say there is a correlation between increases in
tuberculosis cases in recent years and the influx of residents from countries
where disease prevention is substandard.â â36 Students in Alexandria Test
Positive for TB Exposure,â Washington Post, June 8, 1995.
5. "Taking it to the Streets" Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1993.
6. Employee Benefit Research Group study, January 1995. âThe study
suggests the very high degree to which that population [illegal aliens] is
contributing to uncompensated costs.â EBRI President Dallas Salisbury,
Washington
Post, January 25, 1995.
7. Assessment of Potential Impact of Undocumented Person on National
Health Reform, National Health Foundation, April 14, 1993.
8. See _FAIR publications._
(http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_researchlist47ab)
9. Madeleine Peiner Cosman, Ph.D., Esq. âIllegal Aliens and American
Medicine,â Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Spring 2005
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