While the government shutdown continues and health-care reform remains gridlocked, Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) burdens taxpayers with out-of-control costs. For more than a decade, Obamacare has been riddled with systemic fraud that has been denied by Democratic Party bureaucrats, ignored by much of the media, and paid for by weary taxpayers.
Built on lies including “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” Catholics continue to bitterly recall the duplicitous role that Sr. Carol Keehan, CEO of the Catholic Healthcare Association, played in passing Obamacare—despite the pushback by the Catholic bishops because of its inclusion of abortion funding and the contraception mandate. Sr. Keehan’s mendacious shepherding of the health-care program was rewarded with a silver signing pen from President Obama.
Intensifying the pressure today on an already overburdened health-care system, the influx of several million undocumented immigrants has pushed government-funded health care to a breaking point. According to an October 2024 CBO report to Rep. Jodey Arrington, federal and state governments spent $27 billion on Emergency Medicaid for noncitizens ineligible for full Medicaid coverage between 2017 and 2023. In 2023, the estimated cost of health care for undocumented immigrants in the United States was approximately $3.8 billion, specifically for Emergency Medicaid services.
Hospitals are bound by law to provide emergency services to undocumented patients under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), enacted in 1986. This is a federal law that requires hospitals to provide emergency medical care to all individuals, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay. Under EMTALA, any hospital that receives Medicare funding must conduct a medical screening exam for anyone who arrives at the emergency department and must provide stabilizing treatment for emergency medical conditions, including active labor. This mandate applies to undocumented immigrants as well as uninsured citizens and legal residents—and most of us strongly support the provision of this care to all on an emergency basis.
Unfortunately, such care is costly. According to the Trump administration, the estimated cost of emergency health care in 2024—including labor and delivery and postnatal care of the mothers and newborn babies—of undocumented immigrants in the United States rose 142 percent from the year before to an astonishing 9.1 billion dollars of taxpayer funds to pay for the emergency health care of those in the country illegally. Between 2020 to 2024, Medicaid taxpayer health-care dollars provided to illegal immigrants tripled.
Though critics argue that the Trump administration’s numbers are inflated, few challenge the fact that the nation’s hospitals are facing a fiscal crisis. In January 2024, Dr. Donna Lynne, CEO of Denver Health, publicly voiced concern over the financial strain caused by uncompensated care for undocumented individuals. Speaking at a finance and governance committee meeting, she stated, “Where do you think the migrants are getting care? They are getting care at Denver Health…It’s going to break Denver Health in a way that we didn’t even anticipate.” Her remarks highlighted the hospital system’s mounting fiscal challenges, noting that Denver Health treated over 8,000 undocumented immigrants in 2023, accounting for approximately 20,000 visits. Uncompensated care costs surged from $60 million in 2020 to $136 million in 2023.
Hellbound and Down 