If you haven’t figured out Obamacare yet… join the club.

There’s a lot we need to learn about our new health care system.

But there is SOMETHING we all do know… Obamacare offers Universal Healthcare, RIGHT?

Er…wrong.

Not for the estimated 11.7 million undocumented workers in the US.   And this could be a big problem for all of us.

When these illegal immigrants have health issues they make expensive visits to hospital emergency rooms where average costs for common illness can be staggering.

So… who’s going to pay their bills? Well, taxpayer money has been subsidizing emergency care for undocumented workers for a while.

There’s a government program the Washington Post calls “emergency Medicaid.” Hospitals are reimbursed for treating Medicaid defined low-income illegal immigrants in the ER (only life or death situations and pregnancy care are covered).

Here lies the rub… one of Obamacare’s key benefits was to decrease the cost of national healthcare. 

The hope was newly insured Americans would avoid the expensive ER as they receive increased access to primary care physicians (healthcare term for your everyday ‘doc). 

But with so many undocumented workers in the system, health costs for the country could remain stubbornly high.

Would it be cheaper just to let illegal immigrants pay have health insurance like everybody else? 

Maybe… but this gets into the messy politics of immigration reform that is currently bottled up in dysfunctional Washington.

So… have we made Obamacare any clearer for you?