Can't blame illegals for US health costs

If you liked this video about a hospital in Martin Co., Florida struggling with the cost of freeloading illegal immigrants, then you'll love this (the site has a "Camp FEMA" banner, so you know it's legit):

http://www.infowars.com/healthcare-debate-must-include-costs-for-treating-illegals/

Seriously though, for argument's sake, let's suppose that today each of the lower 48 states spends $1 billion a year on health care for illegals via hospitals. That's a wild overestimation, but let's go with it. So that's $48 billion a year in costs passed on to us. In 2007, hospital spending in the U.S. was $697 billion, and total health spending was about $2.1 trillion. Taking a modest rate of annual increase of 6%, we can guesstimate that hospital spending in 2009 will be about $783 billion. In 2009, total U.S. health spending is expected to reach $2.5 trillion. Meanwhile, according to the top consulting firm McKinsey, in 2007 America spent $186 billion more than it should have on health care because of higher than normal administrative costs.

So, putting all that together.... Spending on illegals, maximum, accounts for 6-7% of U.S. hospital costs, and 2% of total U.S. health costs. But that's based on a wild exaggeration of their cost impact: we know that states like Montana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, etc. spend nowhere near $1 billion a year on illegals.

Meanwhile, if there are 15 million illegals in the U.S., they constitute about 5% of the U.S. population, whereas real health spending on illegals probably constitutes less than 1% of total health spending. And, we know that excess spending on red tape due to the health insurance industry's claims system, and lack of patient e-records, is 3.8 times more than the wildest estimate of the cost of care for illegals.

I hope these calculations have put the problem in the proper perspective.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending illegal immigrants who are breaking our laws by being here; and I do think we need to find a way to stabilize and deport chronically ill illegals; but let's not look for the simplest (stupidest) explanation for why U.S. health costs are so high. The numbers just don't support the claim that illegals are to blame for America's out-of-control health spending.