Health care costs in the U.S. have skyrocketed for many reasons. However, Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee leading the charge for health care reform, should warn Congress that the U.S. cannot achieve fiscally responsible health care reform without also substantially reducing immigration although many immigrants are fine individuals.

According to the March 2007 Current Population Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, about one-third of all foreign-born lack health insurance; immigrants and their U.S.-born children under 18 accounted for nearly one third of all people in the U.S. without health insurance and more than 70 percent of the growth of the uninsured population in the U.S.

Meanwhile, every year one million legal immigrants, at least half a million illegal migrants, plus hundreds of thousands of "guest workers" continue to enter the U.S. Their U.S.-born children are American and will be eligible under the Obama health plan.

President Obama and Congress should be aware of the explosive fiscal burden if the misnamed "comprehensive immigration reform" -- amnesty and massive guest worker visas -- promoted by open-border advocates is enacted. That "reform" could add over 120 million U.S. and foreign-born relatives of legalized people and "guest workers" to the U.S. over the next 20 years.

Not only will these newcomers need jobs, they will also require health care, education and other social services whose expenses could well exceed the tax dollars they will generate because of their low incomes.

Obviously, teen pregnancies, totaling 750,000 annually nationwide, should also be substantially curbed due to their skyrocketing costs. Presently, many taxpayers are struggling to make ends meet. Should they continue to pay for the health care of families whose U.S. and foreign-born parents obviously cannot self-support, including cases similar to the octuplets' mother? Americans are already taxed up to their years. Is it wise or responsible to continue to borrow from China and other countries to finance our current and future needs?

Other factors have increased health care costs and the number of uninsured. However, adding 3 million people annually to the U.S. -- jobseekers, patients, students and energy users -- makes achievement of President Obama's other goals improbable. For example, advocating green energy is commendable, but no clean energy is low-cost or pollution-free and can cope with unlimited population growth. Also, the president's costly education proposals will not succeed if our student population, driven mostly by mass legal and illegal immigration, continue to swell.

Presently, over 14 million Americans, including legal immigrants, have lost their jobs. Since enacting an immigration moratorium requires only an act of Congress signed into law by the president, the Obama administration and Congress should immediately adopt some sort of immigration moratorium. Furthermore, our immigration laws should be seriously enforced, so that we can put all able-bodied welfare recipients, nonviolent prison inmates, and other unemployed legal residents to work in jobs currently held by illegal migrants.

No solution on Earth is perfect. But the U.S. is now the greatest debtor nation in the world and American leaders' priority should be American citizens, U.S. and foreign-born.

Yeh Ling-Ling, a Chinese immigrant, is executive director of Alliance for a Sustainable USA, a national nonprofit organization based in Oakland, Calif.