Texas hospitals incurred more than $1 billion in medical expenses for treating illegal immigrants during fiscal year 2025, marking the first year the state formally collected and compiled such data.
Records assembled by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and obtained by Texas Scorecard show that hospitals reported 313,742 patient visits connected to individuals not legally present in the country, with total costs reaching $1.05 billion by the close of the fiscal year.
Although Texas’ fiscal year spans from September 1 through August 31, hospitals were not required to begin submitting reports until November. Using the available figures, the costs average roughly $105 million per month, suggesting that the full-year financial burden may be substantially higher than what was officially recorded.
When viewed in the context of the state budget, the hospital expenses alone amount to nearly 1% of Texas’ tax-supported funds.
The data collection stems from an executive order signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in August 2024, which required the state to monitor hospital usage by “individuals not lawfully present” in the United States. Under the directive, Texas hospitals were instructed to provide quarterly reports to the health agency detailing inpatient discharges, emergency room visits, and associated costs tied to patients without legal status.
Texas, which shares a long border with Mexico, experienced some of the highest illegal border crossing levels ever seen during the Biden administration, placing enormous strain on the state’s healthcare infrastructure, Abbott press secretary Andrew Mahaleris previously told Fox News Digital.
According to the report, the single largest category of spending involved inpatient discharges for patients who were not covered by Medicaid or CHIP, totaling $565.4 million across 40,947 discharges. CHIP, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, is a joint federal and state initiative that offers affordable health coverage to children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid.
Emergency room visits by non-Medicaid and non-CHIP patients generated an additional $205.5 million in costs, the data shows.
Patients who were enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP also accounted for major expenditures, including $255.3 million related to inpatient discharges and another $24.3 million tied to emergency department visits.
For fiscal year 2025, hospitals initially submitted data only for November 2024, reporting 30,743 visits with costs exceeding $102 million, according to state figures.
Later submissions showed that the financial toll remained consistently high. From December 2024 through February 2025, hospitals logged 149,619 visits costing $330.8 million.
Between March and May 2025, reported expenses totaled $319.3 million, followed by another $298.3 million in costs from June through August 2025.
{Matzav.com}
