Texas Hospitals Face Over $1 Billion in Costs for Illegal Immigrant Healthcare
A new report shows that Texas hospitals spent over $1 billion on healthcare for illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2025. This is the first year the state started keeping track of these costs.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) gathered the data. It shows that hospitals had 313,742 visits from people who are not in the country legally. The total cost for these visits was $1.05 billion.
Texas’ fiscal year runs from September 1 to August 31, but hospitals only had to start reporting this data in November. The reported costs average about $105 million each month. This means the actual total cost for the year could be even higher.
Governor Greg Abbott ordered the tracking of these costs in August 2024. He wanted to know how much money Texas hospitals were spending on people who are not legally in the U.S.
Texas, as a border state, has seen a large increase in people crossing the border illegally. This has put a strain on the state’s healthcare system.
The biggest expense for hospitals was for patients who were not on Medicaid or CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program). These patients had $565.4 million in costs for inpatient care. Emergency room visits for these patients cost another $205.5 million.
Patients who were on Medicaid or CHIP also added to the costs. Their inpatient care cost $255.3 million, and their emergency room visits cost $24.3 million.
In November 2024, the first month of reporting, hospitals had over 30,000 visits costing over $102 million. The high costs continued throughout the year.
