Waste of the Day: Florida Hospitals Spent $566 Million Caring for Illegal Immigrants

Topline: Florida hospitals spent $566 million providing care for illegal immigrants in the last six months of 2023, according to a recent report from the state’s Agency for Healthcare Administration.

Florida collected the receipts, according to law

Key facts: Gov. Ron DeSantis passed a law in May 2023 instructing all hospitals that receive Medicaid funds to collect data on patients’ immigration status. Patients can decline to answer and are informed that their quality of care will not be affected.

Between June and December 2023, nearly 55,000 hospital patients said they were not in the country legally. An additional 486,000 patients declined to provide their citizenship status.

Less than 1 % of patients self-identified as illegal immigrants. Florida multiplied that number by total hospital operating expenses of $69 billion — an estimate based on 2022 data — to arrive at its $566 million figure.

The report classifies the expense as “uncompensated care,” meaning hospitals spend more on helping illegal immigrants than they earn by providing them services. The report argues that “these costs are directly or indirectly passed on to taxpayers or to customers and insurers” because hospitals will be forced to raise rates or cut costs to make up the money.

Miami-Dade County hospitals spent almost $232 million caring for illegal aliens, the most by far of any county in the state. Orange County and Hillsborough County each spent nearly $60 million.

There were over 6.6 million hospital visits in total in 2023, mostly from American citizens and immigrants with legal status.

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A governor steps up

Background: Alexis Tsoukalas, a policy analyst with the Florida Policy Institute, told WLRN the report is “misleading” because it assumes that every hospital patient incurs the same expense, regardless of why they need medical care.

Tsoukalas also pointed out that some of the costs will be reimbursed by Medicaid — but that’s still taxpayer money.

Regardless, DeSantis’ new law appears to be scaring some immigrants away from seeking medical care.

Data obtained by Politico shows that $148.4 million of state and federal Medicaid dollars went toward migrants in Florida in fiscal year 2023, but only $67 million was spent in the first 10 months of fiscal year 2024. There is no direct evidence that DeSantis’ law caused the decrease, Politico noted.

Summary: Hospitals have a duty to help those in need, but our government also has a duty to protect our borders and safeguard taxpayer funds.

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This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.