When Vox finally made public its candidate for the regional elections on February 8, the party continues to deploy its ultra agenda in Aragon. The last chapter was a new attack on immigration, and more particularly on health spending intended to treat unregularized foreigners. The far-right group estimates the cost of this concept for public health at 10 million euros – which is universal and constitutes a constitutional guarantee – but to do this, it inflates the expenses for emergencies or surgical interventions.
This is reflected in the data provided by the ultra formation in a note made public on Tuesday in which it estimates the “health cost of illegal immigration” at “more than 10 million euros annually”. To do this, he relies on the response to a question sent by Vox MP David Arranz to the Minister of Health, José Luis Bancalero, in which he asks him about the “number of illegal immigrants who have had access to surgical operations, emergencies and front-line medical services during the year 2024”.
Health uses what is called “code 85”, which is purely administrative in nature and refers to the mission entrusted to those who register under this condition in primary care. A notion which, as the Ministry itself specifies in its response, does not convey a faithful image given that this person may have “subsequently regularized” their situation, despite which they would continue to appear under the same heading.
With this allocation in hand, in 2024 there were 19,882 primary care consultations, 10,253 emergency care and 654 surgical procedures. In the first case, with data from 2023, this would represent 0.19% of the total consultations in Aragon and, in the second, 1.65% of emergencies. In the community, the percentage of illegal aliens is estimated to be 9% of total immigrants, meaning the group would represent approximately 1.27% of the total population.
To arrive at the estimate of “more than 10 million euros”, Vox attributes a cost of 1.7 million euros to primary care consultations and 1.9 million to emergencies. And to reach the total amount, we must add to this the interventions and “specialized consultations and diagnostic tests”.
However, in the case of emergencies themselves, compared to the average cost of 185 euros determined by the far-right formation, the Ministry of Health itself sets it at 40 euros – almost five times less – in the order in which it sets the prices for the services that it is forced to outsource to the private sector. This expense includes, among other things, assistance, treatments, cures or “routine diagnostic and therapeutic tests”.
To present its assessment, Vox clings to another written response from Councilor Bancalero in which he estimates the cost of “hospital emergencies” between 133 and 255 euros, for which the far-right party limits itself to establishing an average. And as for the 654 operations which, according to Vox’s thesis, would supplement the bill for non-regularized foreigners, they would reach on average 10,000 euros, while in the same response from the head of the Department he referred only to admissions to intensive care, for which he set a range between 1,175 and 5,350 euros.
It should be remembered that, if in 2024 the expenditure of the Ministry of Health amounted to nearly 2.9 billion euros, these 10 million euros would represent 0.35% of the total.
17.6% of the population for 2.1% of health expenditure
At the same time, economic studies reinforce the idea that, in Aragon, foreigners contribute more to public finances than they deduct from them. This is reflected, for example, in the report of the Basilio Paraíso Foundation – an organization dependent on the Chamber of Commerce – on immigration, which shows that the net impact of the immigrant population is positive or neutral. The foreign population has a more favorable age structure, with a lower proportion of people over 65, which reduces pressure on pensions and social services. In terms of health, the average costs of immigrants are 28% lower than those of Spaniards and they represent only 2.1% of total health spending in 2023, despite their proportion in the Aragonese population (17.6%).
In other areas, data show that the contribution of foreigners is proportional to, or even greater than, their weight in the population, such as in education and unemployment. According to this report, immigration generates a net budget surplus estimated at 500 million euros in 2023 in Aragon, showing that its economic contribution more than offsets any additional spending on public services.
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