The High Cost of Free Healthcare...

Illegals’ medical bills top $35.7M

Beleaguered Bay State and U.S. taxpayers coughed up a staggering $35.7 million this year in free emergency health care for more than 52,000 illegal aliens in Massachusetts, sparking outrage from candidates and critics who back a tougher line on immigration.

The figures — released by Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration under an order for the Secretary of State’s office and after more than a month of ducking questions — show illegal immigrants who belong to MassHealth Limited received $33.8 million in taxpayer-funded in-patient hospital care this year.They also made 6,160 visits to the state’s overburdened emergency rooms in the fiscal year ending in June for an additional cost of $1.9 million, a Herald analysis shows.

Over $35 million in health care costs to illegal immigrants. Gee, that couldn't possibly be contributing to the rising cost of health care that Patrick tries to blame on Charlie Baker's stewardship of Harvard Pilgrim, could it? The administration tries to hide behind the shield of not denying life-saving coverage because of immigration status, but it's hard to imagine that the state's 220K illegal immigrants are all getting deathly ill requiring immediate emergency care.

There were two parts that were especially troubling for me regarding this story (aside from 35 million dollars of my tax money being spent caring for people that shouldn't even be in the country, that is):

1.

Patrick’s GOP rival Charlie Baker declined to comment.

This is very disturbing. A week before the election, Baker has a chance to slam-dunk Patrick's claims that Baker's tenure as CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care caused MA health insurance premiums to rise. Here's a gift-wrapped statistic to use as the big hammer against Patrick - his administration has been solely responsible for administering this program and should have been more carefully monitoring disbursements. And yet he's declining comment? It doesn't make sense to pass up this opportunity, and makes me wonder if Baker is trying to keep to the high road - or placate the illegal community...

2.

The figures show 69 percent of the state’s MassHealth Limited subscribers are illegal immigrants. The state is projected to pay $13.7 million of the cost of the health-care program this year, while federal Medicaid picks up the other $22 million.

More than two-thirds of the subscribers to this program are illegal immigrants? Are you serious? If we can identify these illegals, why are they still involved in the program? Why are they not on the next plane or boat sending them back? I honestly do not comprehend how we can know that such a high percentage of subscribers to a program that assists with health care costs are in this country illegally and not do anything about it. This is your tax money and mine, and yet no one seems to care. This should be a much larger issue than it is.

No one seems to be willing to address the issue of people who are in the US illegally, period. We're painted as racists and/or xenophobes for even questioning immigration status; the line between legal immigrants and criminals streaming into the country gets intentionally blurred to further muddy the issue; and the true costs of providing services to all and sundry are hidden or obscured. Rather than take a stand on illegal immigration and the costs to all honest Americans, we turn a blind eye, unwilling to face spurious charges of racism for daring to question the wisdom of allowing our border to remain porous.

It's not going to get better by ignoring it - we're only kicking it down the road - but that seems to be what we're best at these days...

That is all.

Link sent by PISSED, who apparently thinks I've been too mellow recently...