Illegal Immigration Myth of the Day
Illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries are 50% less likely than U.S.-born Latinos to use hospital emergency rooms in California, according to a study published Monday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.The cost of providing healthcare and other government services to illegal immigrants looms large in the national debate over immigration.In Los Angeles County, much of the focus of that debate has been on hospital emergency rooms. Ten have closed in the last five years, citing losses from treating the uninsured, and those that remain open are notorious for backlogs.
By federal law, hospitals must treat every emergency, regardless of a person’s insurance — or immigration — status. Illegal immigrants, who often work at jobs that don’t offer health insurance, are commonly seen as driving both the closures and the crowding.
But the study found that while illegal immigrants are indeed less likely to be insured, they are also less likely to visit a doctor, clinic or emergency room.
Story here. Overestimating the costs of illegal immigration is pretty easy to do. Even pro-immigration types can succumb to inaccurate biases.
on December 3rd, 2007 at 10:08 am
While this will never stop the “but, but, they’re illegal” mantra that pervades the debate, it effectively removes one of the more-cited myths from the table of discussion. An excellent find. (A better study: what percentage of emergency room patients pay the bills after the fact, among illegal immigrants and native-born citizens or Latinos?)