The Human Costs of the Lack of Health Care for the Undocumented

I understand the political rationale for leaving undocumented immigrants out of health care reform. Still, as this op/ed makes clear (“A Worker With No ID and Great Medical Need,” SANJAY BASU, M.D.), that political calculation has very real human costs. As Dr. Basu writes,

“On any given day, the bodies of illegal immigrants lie in San Francisco’s coroner’s office, found by police or firefighters in alleys or on sidewalks, unclaimed and unnamed.

Before they died, their medical costs may well have been passed on to taxpayers. But it’s also true that many were taxpayers themselves. From 2000 to 2005, illegal immigrant workers paid an estimated $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security taxes and about $1.5 billion to Medicare, according to the Social Security Administration. And the president’s Council of Economic Advisers has estimated that illegal immigrants pay $80,000 more in taxes per person than they consume in government benefits over their lifetimes.

The question of whether to insure Carlos and others like him is really a decision about whether to pay now or later — that is, to pay for preventive medical care now, or to pay in the future for hospital and emergency services, or for the internment of unclaimed bodies.”

KJ