By Ed Dean
Last month, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (FAHCA) released a report showing health care for illegal aliens was costing Florida taxpayers around $566 million dollars.
Legislation championed by Florida State Senator Blaise Ingoglia requires Florida hospitals that accept Medicaid to gather information on the immigration status of patients who are admitted or taken to the emergency room. After the information is gathered, hospitals would be obligated to report this data to the state.
“One of the roles of this bill is to find out how much uncompensated care is being provided to illegals and what is the cost,” said Ingoglia.
But liberal groups and Florida Democrats criticized the report as a nothing burger.
The Florida Policy Institute wrote off the report stating that “undocumented people (were) not as significant of a strain on the cost of health care as the state is purporting.” The Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy called the report, “a colossal waste of resources to even be focused on this.”
While these groups downplay the cost, the Federation For American Immigration Reform (FAIR) believes the cost are much higher than the $556 million the state is reporting.
“The $566 million cost estimate is likely to be an underestimate. This is because even though hospitals are required by law to inquire about immigration status, patients may refuse to answer,” and many of those declining to answer are likely to be illegal aliens,” said FAIR.
In the Miami area, Jackson Health System has four hospitals, and the data shows a large number of patients who refused to answer their immigration status when admitted to the ER room. The percentages varied from 26% to 68%.
Florida Democrats haven’t been shy about subverting the state law.
Florida Democrat state Rep. Anna Eskamani admitted she has told hospitals to tell patients they’re not required to answer questions about their immigration status. However, hospitals that receive Medicaid are mandated to ask for it.
Democrat state Rep. Johanna Lopez blasted the report saying, “We expected that this would be analyzed by the state to persecute and harass our immigrants who are contributing to the state of Florida.”
“The bottom line is Floridians deserve to know how much they are being forced to pay for health care provided to illegal aliens,” said Senator Ingoglia.
