Well, here is a statement on the subject...

Sinking Under the Cost of Covering the Uninsured Immigrants

Wednesday, March 12, 2003
By: Dan Stein

Last week was "Cover the Uninsured Week," a public relations scheme designed to draw attention to the fact that more than 40 million U.S. residents do not have health insurance, and one in three people in this country lacked coverage at some time during the past two years. The growing number of people who do not have health coverage is a legitimate crisis that threatens not only public health, but also economic stability.

There are many factors contributing to the alarming increase in the medically indigent in the U.S. However, one critical factor fueling the crisis was noticeably absent from the "Cover the Uninsured Week" campaign. Immigration, as much as any other factor, has helped transform large sectors of the American labor force into uninsured workers.

As laudable as the effort to promote health coverage for all workers is, doing so without addressing the current unprecedented levels of immigration to the United States is akin to bailing water out of a leaky boat, while ignoring the hole in the hull. Immigrants themselves not only constitute a disproportionate share of the medically uninsured in the United States, the ripple effect of mass immigration is causing many native workers to lose employer-provided health benefits.

Combined legal and permanent illegal immigration to the United States is about 1.5 million per year - a figure that has been unaffected by recession or unemployment rates. Immigrants are three times more likely to lack health insurance than those born here. And one out of every four people without insurance — 10 million residents — is an immigrant, according to the Census Bureau. The problem is especially acute among Hispanics, the nation's largest immigrant group and now our largest minority group. An astounding 52.2 percent of Hispanics residents do not have health coverage.

According to the 2000 Census, Cook County contained 1,064,703 foreign-born residents, nearly 20 percent of the county's population. If national statistics hold true, immigration alone would account for nearly one quarter million uninsured persons in Cook County alone. Other counties counties around the country are reeling from mass immigration as well.

According to a survey by the National Association of Counties, 67 percent cited immigration as a cause of their increased costs for public health care.

As many new immigrants have moved into formerly unionized blue-collar jobs, employee health insurance has been among the first benefits to eliminated. Employers just aren't very likely to provide a health package for workers who are earning minimum wage, especially if those workers also happen to be illegal aliens. Moreover, native workers, who used to do those jobs at higher wages, also join the ranks of the medically uninsured.

The ripple effect of mass immigration extends even beyond the immigrant workers and the natives they displace. Direct competitors of companies that have used mass immigration to cut costs are also forced to slash employee benefits in order to stay competitive. Meanwhile employers in other segments of the economy, less affected by mass immigration, have seen their health insurance bills skyrocket, as the cost for providing health care to the uninsured is passed along to those who have insurance.

Proponents of current U.S. immigration policies often extol the virtues of "cheap labor," and claim that our economy could not function without it. "Cover the Uninsured Week" stands as stark evidence that cheap labor isn't cheap. It just means that we are going to pay the bills in the form of higher taxes, higher health insurance premiums and higher anxiety for millions who have no coverage at all.

Obviously, many factors have contributed to the health care crisis in America. It would be naïve to suggest that addressing mass legal and illegal immigration to the United States will magically cure what is ailing our health care system. But it is equally naïve to declare that everyone in America ought to have the benefit of health coverage, while we brings millions more people to this country who are apt to be without it, and who often compete directly with those who already work in this country without health benefits.

Everyone is in favor of covering the uninsured. Paying for it is another matter, as is setting limits on the numbers of new uninsured people who come to this country every year. The difference between a PR stunt and legitimate public interest crusade is how much political capital people are prepared to expend to achieve a worthy goal. Without including immigration reform in the campaign, "Cover the Uninsured Week," promises to be just a PR stunt.