The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) recently released a report entitled “The Sinking Lifeboat:  Uncontrolled Immigration and the US Health Care System,” that stated how immigration policy is a key factor in a growing increase in the uninsured and the financial troubles encumbering public health care systems nationwide. 

The report detailed how one out of every four uninsured people in the United States is an immigrant, how almost half of immigrants either have no insurance or have it provided to them at taxpayers’ expense; and how in some hospitals, two-thirds of total operating costs are for uncompensated care for illegal immigrants. 

According to the report, as states are cutting their health care budgets, high rates of immigration are straining the health care system.  It said that hospitals near the US-Mexican border reported losses of close to $190 million in uncompensated costs for treating illegal aliens in 2000.  These costs have caused some hospitals to reduce staff, increase rates, cut back services and close maternity wards and trauma centers.

FAIR officials contend that the number of legal and illegal aliens who arrived in the US from 1994 to 1998 and their offspring accounted for 59 percent of the growth in the size of the uninsured population in the past 10 years.  They also maintain the position the US politicians need to consider immigration policies and other fundamental causes for the health care crisis in the United States.

The following is a link to the report: www.fairus.org/news/NewsPrint.cfm?ID=2379&c=55.