I got lots of emails from people who were furious that my story last night did not lay the California health care crisis at the feet of the undocumented/illegal alien population. (No my head is not in a bucket.) I did a bit more digging on this and wanted to present a quick cut on the blog.

Check out this report by RAND: http://www.rand.org/news/press.06/11.14.html Here's the headline: "Researchers estimate that total medical spending on undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles County was $887 million in 2000 – 6 percent of total costs, although undocumented immigrants comprise 12 percent of the region's residents."

The folks at UCLA tell me there are 6.5 million uninsured in California, roughly a third of those live in LA county. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there are some 11.5 to 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., about two and a half million living in California. Pew figures that 58% of adult undocumented immigrants are uninsured. (See Pew's Complex Tapestry of the Undocumented.) Roughly 30% of the children or undocumented adults are uninsured. Pew's Jeff Passel estimates that yields about 1.4 million undocumented/illegal uninsured immigrants in the state. We're talking about illegal immigrants making up 20% of California's uninsured population. That's higher than the RAND study, but roughly in line. Again, illegal immigrants are not the real reason for the health care crisis in California.

I was surprised the RAND findings were so low, but after thinking about it, the results make some sense. I doubt you'd immigrate to the U.S. if you were so sick you could not work. I would guess that those who do get really sick go home. The RAND concludes the real cost of undocumented immigration is in education.

Bottom line: illegal immigrants contribute to, but are not even close to being the main reason for, rising health care costs.