Outline: California VS The Hispanic Explosion 1. Introduction 1. 1 By March of 2004, there were 2. 4 million illegal immigrants living in California 1. 2 One out of every four illegal immigrants in the United States lives in California 1. 3 Illegal immigrants place additional burdens on a health care system that is already stressed and that has limited resources. 2. Problem Statement 2. 1 How much does providing health care for illegal immigrants cost California? 2. 2 How do illegal immigrants affect the delivery of health care services to California citizens?
3. Objective 3. 1 The objective of the proposed study is to determine how much of a burden do illegal immigrants place on the California health care system. 3. 2 “Financial burden”: expenses that hospitals must pay for providing health care services for illegal immigrants for which the hospital will not be reimbursed. 3. 3 “Burden on resources”: The number of doctors, hospital beds, and other resources that are expended in the care and treatment of patients who are undocumented or illegal. 4. Hypotheses 4.
1 Hypothesis 1: The cost of providing health care services to the illegal immigrant population will be significant and will be higher than the cost of providing health care services to the same number of legal California residents. 4. 2 Hypothesis 2: The introduction of additional of illegal immigrants into the health care system will result in fewer hospital beds and other resources being available for citizens and legal residents. 5. Importance of this research If Californians knew how much illegal immigrants were costing them, then they might be more highly motivated to demand that actions are taken to solve this problem.
6. Literature Review 6. 1 Overview of the problem 6. 2 Paying for anchors 6. 3 Additional expenses: The cost of non-acculturation 6. 4 Summary of literature review 7. Proposed Research Procedure 7. 1 Sample 7. 2 Research instrument 8. Costs 9. References California VS The Hispanic Explosion: The Impact of Illegal Immigration on Health care in California Executive Summary The surge if illegal immigrants that began in the 1990s and continues to the present time has had an adverse effect on the delivery of health care services.
Illegal immigrants are more likely to live in poverty and are less likely to have health insurance. Consequently, the medical expenses of this group must be absorbed the hospitals that provide medical services. The non-payment for services creates a financial hardship for hospitals and has been associated with reductions in services and the closure of some health care facilities. The proposed study seeks to learn the effect that illegal immigration has had on the delivery of health care services in California.
California VS The Hispanic Explosion: The Impact of Illegal Immigration on Health care in California The 1990s saw the beginning of a surge of illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States. The United States and California have dealt with periods of elevated immigration activity before, but never to this extent. By March of 2004, there were 10. 3 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, 57% of whom were from Mexico and another 24% of whom were from some other Latin American country (Passel, 2005, pp. 4-5).
Historically, illegal immigrants have tended to settle in states that are along the United States’ southern border with Mexico. This trend has changed somewhat in recent years, as the illegal immigrant population has begun to disperse and some non-border states have become destinations for undocumented workers. California, however, continues to be a major destination for illegal immigrants. In 2004, one out of every four of the illegal immigrants in the United States (24%, or 2. 4 million people) was living in California (Passel, 2005, p. 11). Problem Statement.
In addition to the need for jobs that draws undocumented workers to California, illegal immigrants also require the same basic services that are essential to all people, including health care services for themselves and their families. Like health care systems all across the United States, the California health care system is already facing the multiple challenges of providing care for uninsured citizens, rising medical expenses, shortages of service providers and other qualified medical personnel, and other problems in the state’s hospitals and overall health care system.
Simply by virtue of the numbers of illegal immigrants who utilize medical services in California, the activity of illegal immigrants places additional burdens on a system that is already stressed and that has limited resources. The purpose of this proposed research project is to quantify what this burden costs taxpayers and health care providers and to determine how the additional burden that is created by illegal immigrants affects the overall delivery of health care services to Californians. Objective.
The objective of the proposed study is to determine how much of a burden do illegal immigrants place on the California health care system. The proposed paper recognizes that the term “burden” may be interpreted in different ways. The different meanings of the term “burden” provide the basis for the paper’s two research questions. “Financial burden” will be defined as the expenses that hospitals and ultimately the taxpayers must pay for providing health care services for illegal immigrants for which the hospital will not be reimbursed.
“Burden on resources” will be defined as the number of doctors, hospital beds, and other resources that are expended in the care and treatment of patients who are undocumented or illegal. The first research question addresses the financial burden that illegal immigrants place on the health care system in California. Specifically, how much does it cost hospitals, health care providers, and ultimately the taxpayers to provide health care services for illegal immigrants? The second question addresses the burden on resources that is created by the illegal immigrant population.
Is California’s health care services pipeline being clogged up by the overflow of illegal immigrants that are pushed through the system, and, if so, then what affect has this had on the delivery of health care services to California citizens and legal residents? Hypotheses Each research question will have its own related hypothesis. Hypothesis 1 states that the cost of providing health care services to the illegal immigrant population will be significant and will be higher than the cost of providing health care services to the same number of legal California residents.
In other words, this hypothesis supposes that it will cost a hospital and the State of California more to provide health care services for X number of illegal immigrants than it would to provide the same services to X number of citizens or legal residents. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that illegal immigrants will be less likely to have health care insurance than citizens and legal residents, despite the fact that there are many Californians who do not have health insurance.
Hypothesis 2 states that the introduction of additional of illegal immigrants into the health care system will result in fewer hospital beds and other resources being available for citizens and legal residents. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that health care is a finite resource. The increased use of a limited resource by one group will result in less of that resource being available for other groups. Health care slots that are filled by illegal immigrants represent slots that are not available to be filled by citizens and legal residents.