Title: How Undocumented Immigrants Sometimes Receive Medicaid Treatment | PBS NewsHour
Headings: How Undocumented Immigrants Sometimes Receive Medicaid Treatment
How Undocumented Immigrants Sometimes Receive Medicaid Treatment
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Content: You can’t do it after the fact,” said Jack Martin, the special projects director for the organization. Groups that advocate for immigrants say it’s foolish for Medicaid to pay only for the births and not for the prenatal care that might prevent costly and long-term complications for American children. “It’s a lose, lose, lose,” said Sonal Ambegaokar, a health policy lawyer at the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for low-income immigrants. She said denying broad insurance coverage to legal immigrants hurt doctors and hospitals financially, prevented patients from getting needed care and increased costs for the health system. “There is no evidence that Emergency Medicaid is the cause of migration,” Ambegaokar said. “ Immigrants migrate to the U.S. for job opportunities and reunifying with family members.” Data that Kaiser Health News collected from seven states that are thought to have the highest numbers of illegal immigrants show that the funding pays for emergency services delivered to more than 100,000 people a year. California hospitals get about half the $2 billion spent annually on Emergency Medicaid. The rest is spread mainly among a handful of states. In 2011, for example: