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- Title
Cutting Public Funding for Undocumented Immigrants' Prenatal Care Would Raise the Cost of Neonatal Care.
- Authors
Brown, B.
- Abstract
Public funding of prenatal care for undocumented women has become a subject of intense public debate in recent years, particularly in California. Policymakers and voters there have supported proposals, which have been stalled by legal challenges, to eliminate public benefits, including prenatal care, for undocumented immigrants. According to the study's cost-benefit analysis, each dollar cut from prenatal care could cost taxpayers up to $3.33 more in neonatal care. The study's sample was drawn from 3,351 women who delivered at a large university hospital between January 1, 1996, and December 31, 1997. Among these women, 34% had no legal residency status in the United States. The investigators reviewed medical records to obtain information about the women, their pregnancies and the birth outcomes. The researchers calculated the cost of care for these women and their infants on the basis of Medi-Cal (California's Medic- aid program) reimbursement schedules. Maternity costs included the costs of hospital services and obstetrician fees for intrapartum and postpartum care. The cost of neonatal care included fees for intensive care and for pediatricians and neonatologists. The long-term cost of caring for children who were low-birth-weight was estimated on the basis of costs published in a previous study for health care, child care, special education and grade repetition from birth to age 15.
- Subjects
UNITED States; MEDICAL care costs; PRENATAL care; WOMEN immigrants; AMERICAN women; UNIVERSITY hospitals; PREGNANCY
- Publication
Family Planning Perspectives, 2000, Vol 32, Issue 3, p145
- ISSN
0014-7354
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2648164