Medicaid is a program funded by federal and state revenue where revenue is made up of citizen’s taxes. This health assistance is one way in which taxes are transformed into free and subsidized services that are given back by the government to the public, most especially for the underprivileged who need help the most. Welfare works to improve the lives of lower income American families and lower current poverty levels. At current low levels of poverty in the United States, actual welfare funds spent is also smaller so that more funds are used elsewhere or for other public services.
However, the surge of illegal immigrants poses a strain on welfare funds and to the economy in general. Majority of illegal immigrants are from lower economic backgrounds and live in the U. S. with little improvement in their standards of living. Illegal immigrants lump together with the low income American citizens significantly increasing the number of poor people, the poverty rate and subsequently, the amount of welfare spent. Although they become employed, not a few do not pay taxes or even if they do, health and welfare spent for them is greater then their all their taxes combined.
In 2002, a study showed that illegal immigrant families accessed $26. 3 billion worth of public services while their taxes amounted to $16 billion (Seper). This means that for that year, each illegal immigrant family used approximately $6,950 in welfare, mainly for medical needs, but paid only $4,200 in taxes (Seper). The lower taxes and higher welfare expenses are attributed to the lesser paid jobs they hold in the U. S. given their lower skills and educational attainments.
Although information does not abound on the impact of illegal aliens on the economy in clear-cut numerical indicators precisely because of their undocumented status, it is clear that taxpayers paid the brunt for the health care or welfare of illegal immigrants when they shouldered the more than $10 billion deficit in the figures mentioned earlier. As the middle and working classes struggle to achieve the American dream, more taxes to fund ballooning welfare costs for illegal immigrants would make life harder.
This imbalance is also reflected in the state of our health care services systems where operations have become less stable because of the free emergency Medicaid services given to illegal immigrants and that the state and federal governments are still debating on whether to reimburse or not. Yet, access to adequate health care is also important to underprivileged Americans and if we were to uplift their standard of living, our priority in welfare spending should be directed at this segment of society. What should be done?
It would seem that illegal immigrants would not put so much of a strain on the economy if most of them were highly skilled and highly educated. As such they would be in a better position to contribute a lot more to the economy than the costs they would incur for assistance thereby benefiting the economy and society as a whole. However, this can not be imposed without stricter immigration laws. The border patrol effort at the U. S. -Mexico border is a step towards tightening the entry of illegal immigrants.
Also notable are the efforts of several states to limit the access of illegal immigrants to welfare assistance, especially emergency Medicaid, through stringent documentation of citizenship requirements and also to require employers to verify the immigration or citizenship status of applicants before hiring them. An easily accessible welfare system should not become the reason why illegal immigrants are attracted to the U. S. and cause detriment to taxpayers and lower income Americans.
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