Philadelphia Blocks ‘Medical Deportations’ With a Priceless Prescription

Philadelphia this month became the first U.S. city to ban so-called medical deportations that send ailing illegal aliens back to their native countries to receive long-term care. The law will require hospitals to keep migrants needing medical attention in the city of Brotherly Love.
In addition, the law requires hospitals to explore a patient’s eligibility for emergency health insurance and to produce a written report explaining why removal to another country is appropriate. Complaints against a hospital will trigger a Health Department investigation.
“This is going to be something good, not only for the community here in Philadelphia, and in the name of every immigrant here in Philadelphia, but in all the United States,” said Claudia Martinez, the niece of a Guatemalan man, known only as A.V., who suffered a serious brain injury when he was struck by a motorcycle in May 2020.
But there are numerous, not-so-good side effects. While the new law purports to be compassionate in attempting to block ad-hoc removals from the country, it blithely ignores a fundamental question: Who picks up the tab?
Under U.S. law, illegal aliens are not eligible to enroll in federally funded coverage including Medicaid, CHIP, or Medicare, or to purchase coverage through the ACA Marketplaces. As such, an estimated half of illegally present migrants have no health insurance.
Twelve states and the District of Columbia offer various forms of coverage to migrants. This month the Biden administration approved an application by Washington State to expand health insurance access to all residents regardless of immigration status by allowing it to forgo requirements set by the Affordable Care Act. Notably, however, Pennsylvania hasn’t taken any of these steps.
Chris Conover, of the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at Duke University, calculated that American taxpayers subsidized healthcare for illegal aliens to the tune of $18.5 billion in 2016.
Those were the good old days before President Joe Biden opened the floodgates at the border. This year, FAIR estimated the bill at a whopping $41.7 billion. The administration is seeking to expand that number by extending healthcare coverage to illegal aliens in the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program.
Philadelphia’s City Hall diktat simply dumps an entire financial load on hospitals and orders them to figure something out. This will inevitably means higher healthcare costs for law-abiding citizens, while inviting more seriously ill migrants into the city’s hospital wards.
Watch for this trickle-down effect to spread as other local governments signal their (unfunded) compassion by trying their hand at freelance immigration law. And what does the Biden White House do as migrant medical bills mount? It just keeps ’em coming.
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