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Essay about Illegal Aliens Have the Right to Healthcare

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Everyday people are sent to the hospital. Not only are they in fear of losing their life but also in fear of being in debt due to the prices of health care treatment they need. But what if this patient happens to be an illegal alien? What if the patient has a foreign illness that needs to be cured so it does not spread? Should healthcare providers continue to provide (s) he with treatment even if they cannot pay? Or should illegal aliens be treated just like any other patients by having a right to health care?
Illegal aliens are net consumers of public services and they contribute to economic growth (Immigrants’ Economic Contributions, 2009). Since 1990, immigrants have contributed to job growth in three main ways: They fill an …show more content…

What the illegal aliens want are jobs that will potentially give them a higher wage in comparison to the country they came from. To effectively weigh whether providing health care to immigrants should be considered a right or privilege, one would have to consider how much they contribute to economic growth. A Pew study from last year showed that undocumented immigrants add 600,000 to 700,000 new consumers to the economy every year. Since consumption makes up 70 percent of economic activity in the U.S., this is important (and of course, more consumption means more sales tax revenue). Immigration is also expected to account for one-forth of the Census Bureau’s estimated labor force growth through 2012. Some economic estimates gauge that undocumented immigrants contribute $22 billion, in total, to the economy each year—a number that would increase if they were given the opportunity to become legal (Karvounis, 2007). This evidence suggests that illegal aliens are actually giving back to the nation by doing all of the dirty, low-income jobs and are only using approximately $11 billion in health care and they are contributing about $22 billion a year to the economy. Although these illegals only using half of what they give, they contribute more then what they use.
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