Unfortunately getting a hospital in Mexico to accept such a patient is impossible. Nobody is more sick of this than us guys in the front line who bust our butts off taking care of these high acuity, high liability risk cases on a daily basis and not getting paid. But you know what, there are also millions more of uninsured Americans who show up very sick to the ER's and are receiving free care as well. Welcome to the ER, affectionately known as the dumping ground, but also the safety net of our American society. Until the law changes to where hospitals and healthcare providers can have some essence of sovereign immunity in taking Emergency Room calls, we will continue to practice CYA defensive medicine.
The problem goes beyond that, specialists are running away from hospital and resigning their clinical privileges because afterall, why the heck take unattached ER calls on uninsured patients, who are typically sicker because they have not had routine maintenance care, with higher acuity and hence higher liability risks, and not get paid for it? That is why surgeons and many other specialists are flocking to the outpatient surgical centers to perform elective cases on their paying/insured clienteles because hospitals typically require them to take unattached ER calls in order to have clinical privileges. Trying showing up to one of these surgeons or specialist clinic office and tell them you can't pay for the visit. They'll show you the front door out. Why? Because unlike ER's of hospitals they are not required by federal and state laws to provide medical screening and stabilization of patients who show up to their front doors. Hey, it's only capitalism at work in our healthcare industry.
Then leave them in Vicente Fox's driveway. This is not America's problem.
"...there are also millions more of uninsured Americans who show up very sick to the ER's and are receiving free care as well."
Americans are another matter altogether. From what people tell me here in SoCal, the number of Americans doing this are dwarfed by the flood of illegal aliens.
"Because unlike ER's of hospitals they [outpatient surgical centers and specialist clinic offices] are not required by federal and state laws to provide medical screening and stabilization of patients who show up to their front doors.
I suspect this problem would not be nearly so large and daunting once we completely remove the illegal alien component.
Just wanted to point out that you've already demonstrated one way in which this problem is being resolved by the market. Unreasonable laws, such as EMTALA, require all "emergency rooms" attached to "hospitals" to take all comers. Ok, then; the "emergency rooms" and "hospitals" are being closed (24 hospitals closed in California in 2004) and are being replaced by "surgi-centers" and the like. Health care is still being provided, but doctors are so desperate to change the name of the location that they practice, so they no longer fall under EMTALA, that they are willing to give up all the advantages of being in a "real" hospital. One way or another, illegal's aren't' going to get care. Either they will be sent to their home countries from the US hospitals, or the US hospitals will simply be closed. The only question is how much of the medical system will be destroyed in the process of creating a new system that isn't under the auspices of EMTLA.
Up until about 5 years ago the hospitals billed the Canadian government for the snow birds in Texas. Canada put a stop to this and now when one of their citizens have an emergency here in the states, Canada is notified and they send one of their air ambulances to transport the patient back to Canada for further treatment.
This is what I wrote our Texas senators about. Neither one would answer me.