By Rita Cook
Correspondent
Texas Metro News
AUSTIN – Remember the Executive Order issued by Texas Governor Greg Abbott calling for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to access costs to the Texas public hospital system imposed by the federal government’s open border policies?
Well, the results are in now.
The order specifically directed the commission to:
- Direct hospitals and additional identified providers to collect information regarding the cost of medical care provided to illegal immigrants, beginning by November 1, 2024.
- Direct covered hospitals to report such data to HHSC quarterly, with initial submissions due March 1, 2025.
- Direct those hospitals to inform the patient that federal law mandates that any response to such questions will not affect patient care.
- Report annually, beginning on January 1, 2026, to the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, and the Speaker of the House on the preceding year’s costs for medical care provided to illegal immigrants.
The results reported this month by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission indicate more than $1 billion in health care costs were incurred in fiscal year 2025 by patients not lawfully in the United States.
Gov. Abbott said at the time of the EO “Due to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ open border policies, Texas has had to foot the bill for medical costs for individuals illegally in the state. Texans should not have to shoulder the burden of financially supporting medical care for illegal immigrants.”
In 2022 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said of the healthcare costs that he had uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars that Texas taxpayers involuntarily spent on illegal aliens.
At the time his numbers included Texans paying between $579 million and $717 million each year for public hospital districts to provide uncompensated care for illegal aliens.
He also said Texans paid $152 million to house illegal criminal aliens for just one year; between $62 million and $90 million to include illegal aliens in the state Emergency Medicaid program; paid more than $1 million for The Family Violence Program to provide services to illegal aliens for one year; paid between $30 million and $38 million per year on perinatal coverage for illegal aliens through the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and between $31 million and $63 million to educate unaccompanied alien children each year.
“If we use the minimum estimated costs for services Texas provides to unlawfully present and undocumented aliens, taxpayers are shelling out an estimated $855 million every year,” Paxton said.
Now with the latest report collected for more recent years after Paxton’s calculations the Texas Health and Human Services Commission reported this month:
Emergency Department – Medicaid/CHIP visits 21,845 at $24,332,064;
Emergency Department – NonMedicaid/Non-CHIP visits 230,480 at $205,542,492;
Inpatient Discharges – Medicaid/CHIP visits 20,470 at $255,352,904;
Inpatient Discharges – NonMedicaid/Non-CHIP visits 40,947 at $565,415,404;
Totaling Visits and Costs not legally present at 313,742 for a cost of $1,050,642,864.
Hospitals began reporting in November 2024 and some months during the fiscal year went unreported.
Rita Cook is a world traveler and writer/editor who specializes in writing on travel, auto, crime and politics. A correspondent for Texas Metro News, she has published 11 books and has also produced low-budget films.
