Title: Illegal Immigrants Add to US Healthcare Costs | Newsmax.com
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The Cost of Permanent Patients
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Content: 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. There is a term for these people: " permanent patients," because they have no relatives, insurance or an established address where they can go once released. Ashish Jha, associate professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, told NBC, "It's completely illogical that hospitals have to spend about $2,000 a day on patients who could be cared for much more cheaply in a skilled nursing or rehabilitation facility. But because the law prohibits hospitals from discharging patients without a plan in place for ongoing care — and because nursing homes and rehabs are not required to take patients without insurance — many hospitals wind up keeping these patients for long periods of time." Many patients are stuck because they have no money or insurance to pay for long-term care.