"free-riders" in the American health care system.

Published

Assumption Challenging.........

The facts illustrate that undocumented workers contribute more to the revenue stream for U.S. social benefits than they use.

In Texas, for example, nearly seven percent of the state's population was comprised of undocumented immigrants in 2005. The state's health care costs for undocumented immigrants that same year were a mere $58 million. Yet state revenues collected from undocumented immigrants exceeded what the state spent on social services provided to these immigrants such as health care and education by $424.7 million.51

Immigrant contributions to social services are similar across the country. The National Research Council concluded that immigrants will pay on average $80,000 per capita more in taxes than they will use in government services over their lifetimes.52

51 Undocumented Immigrants in Texas: A Financial Analysis of the Impact to the State Budget and Economy, Office of the Comptroller, Texas, December 2006.

52 James Smith, et al., The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1997.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/06/pdf/immigrant_health_report.pdf

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