Bill For Illegal Immigrants' Medical Care Costs Bay State $35 Million

Gov. Deval Patrick's office- acting under orders from the Massachusetts Secretary of State- released figures showing that an estimated 52,000 illegal immigrants in the MassHealth Limited system cost the commonwealth $33.8 million in taxpayer funded in-patient care and another $1.9 million in emergency care [no word if this included coverage for Obama's Aunt Zeituni- NANESB!].

For some reason, Patrick doesn't want to talk about it.

The Patrick administration, which supplied the figures last week, refused to make state health insurance officials available to discuss them.

But critics were quick to blast the huge medical bill being footed by hard-pressed, law-abiding taxpayers.

“Incorporating illegal immigrants into any type of government-sponsored health care is legitimizing their presence here,’’ said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter immigration policies. “It’s a kind of piecemeal amnesty.’’

Keep in mind this is the same Deval Patrick who initially vetoed $500,000 to keep the outpatient clinic at the Soldier's Home in Holyoke open not even a year ago. It wasn't until after veterans and Soldier's Home staff protested the closure that Patrick did an about-face just days before the January special US Senate election between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley.

[Hat tip- Spitfire Murphy]