According to a report published by Forbes, health care for 3.9 million uninsured illegal aliens costs American taxpayers $18.5 billion annually. Of that total, $11.2 billion in federal taxes went to subsidizing care for illegal aliens in 2016.
Though current policy prohibits the use of federal tax dollars to fund Medicaid or Obamacare for illegal aliens, with the exception of emergency cases, loopholes in the system have enabled illegal aliens to indirectly receive $2.8 billion of health care funding through state-only Medicaid programs and another $4.6 billion from federal taxes. New York, Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington D.C., and California all extend state-only funded Medicaid to illegal aliens.
Federal taxes indirectly fund healthcare for illegal aliens through Community Health Centers, tax exemptions for non-profit hospitals and other health facilities, employer tax exclusion, and Medicaid and Medicare DSH Subsidies. Since, hospitals are not restricted from using uncompensated care funds on illegal aliens, DSH Medicare and Medicaid payments indirectly cover aggregate uncompensated care losses from illegal aliens.
For more on this story, see Forbes.
