I used all those zeros intentionally -- and that is only the money spent by the Harris County Hospital District directly out of local funds.

KTRH has learned the Harris County Hospital District is shelling out millions of dollars every year to treat people who are here in this country illegally.

When you subtract what patients paid for hospital district services, and money from federal grants and other sources, $97.3 million dollars is what the local property taxpayer subsidized the district budget for undocumented immigrant care in 2005. That's 14 percent of the entire hospital system's operating budget.

You did read that correctly -- unreimbursed medical costs for these sovereignty-violating foreigners are 14% of the annual budget for the entire hospital system. Put differently, that makes it $1 out of ever $7 spent by the hospital district -- or over $25 for each man, woman and child in the county.

But it gets worse. The state and federal governments reimburse an additional $28,000,000. That takes it up to over $125,000,000 in government subsidized medical care for those who have entered this country illegally or stayed past the expiration of their visas. That raises the cost to over $33 per Harris COunty resident.

The Harris County Hospital District's unreimbursed costs of caring for illegal immigrants approached $100 million last year, a 77 percent increase in three years.

"The costs are increasing because the population of undocumented immigrants is increasing and the cost of health care is rising," said hospital district spokesman Bryan McLeod.

The unreimbursed costs rose from $55 million in 2002 to $97 million in 2005, the hospital district said in a report released Friday. Last year's figure represented 13 percent of the district's $760 million operating budget.

The district treats about 300,000 patients annually, but lacks enough funds and facilities to care for all of the county's uninsured and underinsured residents, estimated to number between 800,000 and 1.2 million, McLeod said.

Commissioner Steve Radack, who requested the report on the district's costs of treating undocumented immigrants, said county residents are shouldering a burden created by the federal government.

The federal government doesn't prevent illegal immigration, but hardly reimburses local counties where the immigrants most frequently settle and use public health care facilities, he said.

"The federal government allows people to come here illegally," Radack said. "Because of that the cost shouldn't fall on the local taxpayer."

The district treated more than 57,000 illegal immigrants last year, at a cost of $128 million. The federal and state governments reimbursed about $28 million, and the patients themselves paid about $3 million. Over the past 11 years, the district has paid about $607 million in unreimbursed costs for treating undocumented immigrants.

The district does not directly ask patients if they are in the country legally, but infers their status from other information gleaned during patient screenings, officials said.

Well, maybe we should just be appreciative that the border-jumping immigration criminals graciously paid a whole $3,000,000 for their own medical care last year. That would be a whopping 2.34% of the total cost of treating illegals at the Harris County Hospital District -- or less than $1 per resident of Harris County.

And that does not include the medical care written off by private hospitals. Anne Linehan over at blogHOUSTON points to the information supplied by one caller to the Chris Baker radio show on KTRH.

Chris Baker was discussing this yesterday and one of his callers identified herself as an employee of a private, fourteen-hospital group here in the Houston area. She said they routinely write off anywhere from 40 to 60 surgeries each week, because the patients are here illegally and are unable to pay. She said the paperwork will often have Social Security numbers such as 111-11-1111, or 999-99-9999, and bogus addresses, but since hospitals are prohibited from turning anyone away, there is nothing they can do about it.

Now consider the implications of that figure. Little or no reimbursement from the state or federal government for thise surgeries (not to mention other treatment that is written off) means that the costs are being spread around to those of us who have insurance (or those who can afford to pay cash -- a small percentage of the public indeed). That means increased costs for all of us every time we walk (or are wheeled through) the door for treatment. That probably means that each and every one of us is paying significantly more for the treatment of those who are here illegally.

And the sad thing is that nothing is being done about this problem. The feds are not interested in stopping illegal immigration. The hospitals don't take immigration information directly, for fear of scaring sick illegals away from medical care -- and even if they discover that a patient is undocumented, they do not report them to immigration authorities.

Medical costs ae escalating every year -- and I cannot help but believe that one factor is the free medical care given to law-breaking border-jumpers at the expense of each and every US citizen.

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