Title: Illegal Immigrants Add to US Healthcare Costs | Newsmax.com
Headings: 
The Cost of Permanent Patients
Special Links:

Content: The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the current cost of treating uninsured immigrants who entered this country illegally at all levels of government to be $4.3 billion a year, primarily at emergency rooms and free clinics. This doesn't take into account the billions being absorbed by in-patient care delivered by hospitals. Smart Money: Benefit from Market Gains Not Losses
Who is picking up these costs? Every American taxpayer — not to mention medical facilities and insurance companies who turn around and raise their rates for everyone else. For instance, it may surprise you to learn that immigrants who entered this country illegally, who have not paid one dime into Medicaid, are receiving Medicaid benefits. Kaiser Healthcare News reports that "federal law generally bars immigrants who enter this country illegally from being covered by Medicaid. But a little-known part of the state-federal health insurance program for the poor has long paid about $2 billion a year for emergency treatment for a group of patients who, according to hospitals, mostly comprise this class of immigrants." A 2007 report by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that in a four-year period, about 99 percent of those who used Emergency Medicaid were determined to be immigrants that entered this country illegally. This only covers emergency room care, but many thousands of patients in the United States who lack health insurance but who need long-term care wind up lingering in hospitals for many weeks, months or even years because the current healthcare system doesn't offer workable solutions for them.