Illegal Immigrants Will Destroy the U.S. Healthcare System

The healthcare system is stretched to the breaking point. It appears there is no going back, so anyone who tries to tell you that we can give amnesty to all of the illegal aliens currently in this country is lying to you, lying to themselves and/or has no idea how bad the immigration problem is. If a politician is proposing amnesty, they are either not doing their job as they don’t know the facts, or they are trying to keep the Hispanic votes to win the next election. (Our vote is on the latter.) It is really that simple, and you will understand why once you read about the below medical crisis in just a few of our states. We hope to have data for the rest of the country in the near future.

El Centro Regional Medical Center in California is fighting to stay in business. It is the first hospital north of the border, so it becomes one of the first places illegal immigrants show up who are ill or have been hurt. Like many hospitals in the U.S., they never turn a patient away. They can’t afford to do this. As of 2005, 16 clinics and 17 traumas centers closed in southern California alone. The California State Association of Hospitals says hospitals are on the brink of collapse.

The four L.A. County hospitals and clinics spend 340 million dollars a year on undocumented immigrants. The private hospitals spend another 100 million a year on illegal immigrants in this area. “The tax payers cannot be the HMO to the world,” said Michael Anthony, L.A. County Supervisor. “They have basically  bankrupted the system and our Department of Health has a 1.2 billion dollar deficit.”

In San Diego researchers just completed a study of illegal immigrations overall financial impact on the county. “Last year San Diego County spent 101 million dollars providing services to undocumented immigrants,” stated John Weeks PhD from San Diego State University. That doesn’t count 155 million dollars in unpaid medical bills by illegal immigrants. “Between the hospitals and what the county is spending, that’s 250 million a year that our tax payers our getting the shaft for. We’re paying for it. It needs to stop. At some point we go broke, and I think we’re there,” said San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn. “Our focus here is not to be pro or anti immigration. The focus is to get the federal government to understand that particularly along the border, there are consequences to the failure of the government to have a firm immigration policy,” said John Weeks PhD.

A 2000 study found that emergency rooms in hospitals along the border spend 190 million dollars on unreimbursed care on undocumented aliens, and EMS provides another 13 million. However, that was seven years ago. The population has doubled since then and the expenses have tripled according to county officials.

At Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas about 16,000 babies are born every year, which is an average of 42 babies a day. More that 70 percent of them are delivered by undocumented mothers at a cost of $70,7000,000 dollars in 2004 alone. That was three years ago!

For years Dr. Gene Rogers was medial director of the Sacramento County Medically Indigent Medical Services Program. “It is my job to approve or deny public revenues for eligible patients. The county’s budget was being scrutinized at all levels, and they were looking at our department for cutting services,” said Dr. Rogers. He fought to convince them that rather than eliminating staff or cutting services, they should stop paying for undocumented immigrants non-emergency elective medical care. “Somebody had to say something and it was up to me to do it,” said Dr. Rogers. Unfortunately, nobody listened. Dr. Rogers fired a whistle blower lawsuit arguing the county was violating federal law.

“The immigration policy was that illegals that were here should be self-sufficient, except for emergency or public health issues. They weren’t to be allowed at the state or local level, non-emergency issued elective services with tax payer revenues, unless the state legislature passed a bill to provide that.” How did they respond? “August 6th of 2007, my supervisor entered my office and announced that the county no longer needed my services,” said Dr. Rogers.

Antelope County Hospitals is located an hour north of Los Angeles and services more than 105,000 patients each year. According to CEO Ed Mirzabegian, “About 40 to 45 percent of them are unable to afford healthcare.” This hospital is barely making it, and in one year they lost 47 million dollars for uncompensated care. “A significant dollar amount is related to undocumented aliens,” admitted Mr. Mirzabegian. “We don’t check their legal status or their insurance status, and that’s our business . . . and a good portion of those are people who have come to this country looking for work that do not have the money to pay for their own health care,” said Dr. Mark Brown. “If we continue losing money we are not going to survive in the next five years,” said CEO Ed Mirzabegian.

Among the three million illegal aliens filling California emergency rooms is Yalonda Hernadez. She says illegal immigrants have no choice to pass their expenses onto citizens and legal residents. “They have enough money to pay for insurance. They make good money and are educated. Unfortunately, we are not,” she said in Spanish as she can’t speak English. Based on her illegal reasoning, because we are here legally and making money, we should pay for healthcare for tens of millions illegal immigrants.

“This is a crisis for the entire country and the hospital and healthcare industry. We are in the middle of a crisis right now based on where we are located,” reiterated CEO Ed Mirzabegian.

“We cannot afford to have an open door policy to encourage illegals to come here because it is too expensive,” said L.A. County Supervisor Michael Anthony.

“The crisis has been primarily been generated by federal government. They have an open border, which allows a flood of people to come to the United States seeking work, but do not have the funds available to pay for health care when they get sick. And the second thing that they have done is pass a law that all of these people must be seen by the community hospitals for free,” said Dr. Mark Brown of the Antelope County Hospital in California.

San Diego County and Imperial County in California, plus every border county in New Mexico and Arizona (which includes Yuma County, Pima County, Santa Cruz County, Cochise County, Hidalgo county, Luna County and Dona Ana County) have all declared States of Emergency and begged the federal government for help.

“My taxpayers are carrying an unfair burden. It’s a hidden tax is what it really is. They have to pay for a failed government policy. It’s draining our budget and at what point do we go bankrupt?” asked San Diego County Commissioner Bill Horn.

If you don’t see a problem with illegal immigrants like Yolanda Hernandez abusing the United States healthcare system, well, you’re just not being honest with yourself. If we don’t do something NOW, according to hospital and California County officials, it’s only a few years before legal U.S. residents can no longer receive proper medical attention.

Special thanks to Sean Hannity for airing this important information. We basically transcribed his television segment to share with the rest of the concerned country.