Our View: Paying for immigrants’ checkups could lower emergency costs

If states would pay for basic preventitive care, emergencies would be averted and money saved. Leaving people without any health care until they are extremely ill is never a good idea. This goes for anyone, not just immigrants. DP

By FayObserver.com Editorial staff

Fayobserver.com: Fears that illegal immigrants are fraudulently receiving Medicaid health benefits have led to a federal crackdown on eligibility standards. But in North Carolina, those policies are proving penny-wise and pound- foolish.

That’s the gist of a study published in the March 15 Journal of the American Medical Association.

Between 2001 and 2004, North Carolina’s Medicaid program spent less than one percent of its annual budget on care for recent immigrants.

North Carolina, like many states, observes a federal law that excludes illegal immigrants and legal immigrants who have been in the United States fewer than five years from Medicaid, a state and federal program that provides health-care coverage to the poor and disabled. Another law lets Medicaid pay for services to those same immigrants if they’re in dire straits. Emergency Medicaid pays for childbirth and problems related to pregnancy, traumatic injuries and complications from chronic illness.

The sum of the two laws is a lot of money wasted. Illegal immigrants are not using Medicaid for basic checkups and pregnancy care and, as a result, end up needing more serious and expensive procedures later.

Women and children received the bulk of the emergency care. More than 48,000 individuals, including 3,883 children, received Emergency Medicaid during the four-year study period. More than 80 percent of spending was on childbirth and childbirth-related complications.

It’s important to emphasize that, from a medical perspective, there is no question that access to prenatal care for illegal immigrants is important. If someone is pregnant, she needs early and ongoing care.

The real issue is whether or not taxpayers should be paying for prenatal-care services and other services for illegal immigrants who continue to flood into the state. If the population continues to grow unchecked, residents will strain to pay for those services.

The study clearly shows that, at least in the case of pregnant women, paying for basic services is smart because it saves money. Taxpayers save about $3 for each $1 spent on prenatal care.

Lawmakers have a responsibility to spend money wisely on medical services for illegal immigrants. If they are smart they will spend it at the right end of care.