Medicare bill gives Arizona hospitals $160 million for immigrant care

Arizona Star ^ | November 26, 2003 | Jane Erikson

[sarcasm]

The Medicare reform bill approved Tuesday includes $160 million over four years for Arizona hospitals that must give free emergency care to immigrants, legal or illegal.

Hospital officials said Tuesday they were not sure how the $160 million will be distributed.

But they said it's welcome relief after years of being required to care for anyone who comes to their facilities, regardless of insurance status or citizenship.

The $160 million for Arizona hospitals is part of a $1 billion allocation for hospitals in border states.

University Medical Center in Tucson has spent $3.3 million caring for 132 uninsured immigrants since July 1. The hospital has received less than $38,000 from the patients who received the care.

"The health care providers of Southern Arizona, both doctors and hospitals,have been badly saddled with the cost of caring for uninsured foreign nationals for years," said Greg Pivirotto, CEO of University Medical Center and chairman of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association. "This bill helps those of us who have been unfairly bearing the cost of the border issue."

The $1 billion amendment was secured by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., a member of the conference committee that crafted the bill, which narrowly cleared the House on Saturday morning and won a Republican-led approval in the Senate Tuesday. The money was tacked on to the $400 billion Medicare bill that will give at least some prescription drug coverage to the 40 million senior and disabled Americans on Medicare for the first time in the program's 38-year history.

[sarcasm]

ping

[Fledermaus]

I've decided to move to Mexico, get a good tan, quit shaving and coming back across the border so I can get more free services and work under the table.

Now I just have to learn some Spanish and construction or landscaping work.

[gubamyster]

ping

[texastoo]

I had much rather pay $10.00 for a head of lettuce than $25,000 for an illegal immigrant.

[FITZ]

Don't worry --- it's going to become much much more than $1 billion for immigrant care along the border --- word will spread that health care is completely free in the USA and many more will be arriving.

[B4Ranch]

The $160 million for Arizona hospitals is part of a $1 billion allocation for hospitals in border states. This to me is just like giving Mexico $1 billion dollars! These hospitals were doing fine until the avalance of wetbacks started streaming in the US!

Bush said he wouldn't give foreign aid to Latin American countries. What in the hell is this $1 billion dollars if it's not aid?

[Brian Allen]

<< I would much rather pay $10.00 for a head of lettuce than $25,000 for an illegal immigrant. >>

The $10.00 head of lettuce argument is bogus.

If Americans picked lettuce for Thirty Dollars an hour the cost per lettuce would be negligable.

And to get the lettuce picked, we could let go all the former lettuce pickers who are now clerks at the INS and save Billions of tax Dollars, to!

[HiJinx]

These hospitals were doing fine until the avalanche of wetbacks started streaming in the US!

You're absolutely right, and paying for the Feds' mistake with our tax dollars is absolutely wrong, especially the way they are going about it with this bill.

OTOH...should we just shut the only OB ward in a county of 125,000 citizens? Where the next nearest OB ward is anywhere from 40-100 miles away...as the crow flies? You can also insert emergency room, MRI Lab, ambulatory surgery center...

You know JackelopeBreeder, and you know he just had a triple bypass. If it wasn't for the Sierra Vista Regional Health Center he'd be dead today. And if SVRHC doesn't get some relief from the flood of illegals who stiff them on their bills...well, you get the picture.

So, theory aside, what's the solution today? Make up the difference in charges to insurers? That just means you and I pay higher insurance premiums instead of higher taxes...

This was very bad legislation...but the Kyl amendment was the right thing to do for now.

[B4Ranch]

The solution is to bill the Mexican gov't for medical care to Mexican citizens. Fox might just then think about building hospitals in Mexico to take care of these pregnant women and leave our hospitals to needy Americans.

Of course our socialist president would never consider that to be a solution, would he?

[HiJinx]

Probably not...but it wouldn't hurt to start that idea up the chain.

I know neither McCain nor Kolbe would hear of it, but Kyl might.

[JustPiper]

The Medicare reform bill approved Tuesday includes $160 million over four years for Arizona hospitals that must give free emergency care to immigrants, legal or illegal.

I'm moving to Norway!!!

[dennisw]

All the Arizona medicos are happy. More biz for them and now they're sure to be reimbursed.

THEY'RE PATIENT BASE HAS JUST BEEN EXPANDED to Mexico and Central America.

AMERICA, THE FLOP HOUSE OF THE HISPANIC WORLD.

[NewRomeTacitus]

"The solution is to bill the Mexican gov't for medical care to Mexican citizens."

That would be workable except medical workers are forbidden to inquire about nationality. When the treated flee at the first chance, skipping any possibility of being billed, they surely couldn't be expected to have the cajones to admit their origin anyway.

Politicians go on and on about Mexicans being conservative and Catholic, but most of what I see is a culture displaying the honor and morality of gypsies. That probably comes from receiving the least-educated and desperate ten-percent of their population.

[B4Ranch]

"medical workers are forbidden to inquire about nationality."

Change the law and make it work!

[FITZ]

Fox might just then think about building hospitals in Mexico to take care of these pregnant women

No --- he won't do that --- his goal is to get the poor unwed mothers from Mexico up to American hospitals where they can give birth to US citizens who are also Mexican citizens and under his rule.