Do immigrants take healthcare resources away from retirees?

International Health. By Rodrigo López-Vélez One of the focal points of the political debate in these elections has been immigration, with immigrants being blamed for overwhelming our country’s healthcare system. According to this view, it seems that we charitably provide free healthcare to this very large group in Spain. But this accusation is unfounded—quite the contrary, in fact, since they have paid and will continue to pay far more than they receive. Many have arrived in just a few years, ready to work, already adults and at little cost, without the state having had to invest a single euro in their healthcare. With one of the lowest birth rates in the world, Spain would have lost around 10 million inhabitants. But the demographic catastrophe has been partly avoided thanks to immigrants. There would therefore not have been enough workers to pay the pensions of today’s retirees and the many more who will retire in the near future. With elderly people needing care and barely any state assistance, someone would have had to stay home to look after them. It is striking that foreign women care for 90% of dependent elderly people. In addition, they work in the home, allowing the employment rate among Spanish women to rise by 12% over the past decade. If we compare immigrants’ annual contribution to the public coffers with the expenses they generate, the surplus in the state’s favor reaches 5 billion euros (they contribute 23.402 billion and receive 18.618 billion euros). This means that immigration has contributed 39% of average per-capita GDP growth and increased each Spaniard’s annual income by 623 euros. With this money, 900,000 native-born Spanish pensioners can be supported, since fewer than 1% of them are foreigners (including EU citizens). The paradox is that many of these Spanish pensioners support the anti-immigration rhetoric. Of course, there are periods of overcrowding and occasional collapses of the healthcare system, but they are resolved through investment in infrastructure and by hiring more healthcare professionals, not by blaming immigrants. Forecasts indicate that Spain will become a country with a markedly aging population, in which the population over 65 will increase by eight million and the working-age population will decline by 6 million between 2007 and 2050. But if no more people come, if some of those already here are expelled, who will pay future pensions and who will care for us?