Illegal Immigration Enters the Health-Care Debate -- An Issue 'No One Wants to Touch'

From The Wall Street Journal:

VALLEJO, Calif. -- A health clinic in this blue-collar city north of Oakland, partly funded by the county, is saving local hospitals thousands of dollars in emergency-room visits by treating uninsured patients who suffer only non-urgent ailments.

A watchdog group is now calling on county officials to cut funding for clinic patients who can't prove they are in the U.S. legally, a debate certain to surface in the national health-care overhaul.

With congressional proposals already stirring raw emotions, few supporters are eager to add the incendiary issue of illegal immigration. A provision in the House's health-care-overhaul bill rules out federal funding for illegal immigrants.

But in many ways, illegal immigration is at the nexus of two key health issues: the uninsured and ballooning costs.

Roughly half of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. don't have health insurance, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group. [Only half; this is not my experience. I would put the percentage much, much higher. But I do respect Pew's research.] Like others who can't afford medical care, illegal immigrants tend to flock to hospital emergency rooms, which, under a 1986 law, can't turn people away, even if they can't pay. Emergency-room visits, where treatment costs are much higher than in clinics, jumped 32% nationally between 1996 and 2006, the latest data available.

The role illegal immigrants play in U.S. health-care costs is "one hot button that no one wants to touch," says Stephen Zuckerman, an economist at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

As in emergency rooms, patients aren't asked about their immigration status.

Costs at such primary-care centers are probably 10% to 15% the cost of treatment in a hospital emergency room, says Paul Mango, head of the health-care practice at McKinsey & Co.

Residents have since complained to a 19-member county-appointed watchdog group about taxpayer money La Clínica going to health care for people living in the U.S. illegally. Neither the clinic nor the Sutter [hospital] emergency room ask people their immigration status.

"All we can ask them is their name, date of birth and chief complaint," says Ms. Hammons, the Sutter emergency-department manager. "Heavens, we don't deny anybody treatment. You are required to see anyone who shows up at the emergency department."

Mike Reagan, a Solano County supervisor who originally voted for the clinic's funding, now says the facility should erect a "firewall" to prevent taxpayer money from going to illegal immigrants. "I'm not in favor of rewarding illegal behavior in any form," he says.