Posted on 05/18/2004 3:18:04 PM PDT by StoneColdGOP
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House rejected legislation that could have led to hospital emergency rooms denying some services to illegal aliens while helping to get them kicked out of the country.
Hispanic legislators led opposition to the bill, joining medical groups in contending that it would turn hospitals into law enforcement agencies and prevent illegal residents from seeking life-saving medical treatment.
It was defeated 331-88.
The legislation came to the House floor as a result of a promise that GOP leaders made to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., in exchange for his vote on the Medicare prescription drug bill that narrowly passed last November.
Rohrabacher was ready to vote against the Medicare bill because it contained $1 billion over four years to reimburse hospitals for treating illegal immigrants. The Orange County conservative was told he could offer legislation to counter the effects of that provision.
Rohrabacher's bill would have required hospitals receiving money under the provision to obtain information on the immigration status and employer of people seeking emergency treatment. That information would have been sent into a database set up jointly by the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services.
The Homeland Security Department would have been required to initiate deportation proceedings against illegal aliens.
In addition, employers of illegal aliens would have been responsible for the cost of unreimbursed emergency room care, and hospitals would not have had to provide care for an illegal alien who could safely be sent back to his or her own country for treatment.
Rohrabacher said health care for illegals has extended to heart bypasses, transplants and cancer treatment costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Those opposed to his bill, he said, "are voting to spend our limited health care money to make America the HMO of the world. And then they act surprised when even more tens of millions of illegals flood into our country."
But Hilda Solis, D-Calif., said the bill would turn hospitals into law enforcement and immigration agents, and would have lead to scenarios where women in labor would have to choose between going to a hospital and being deported. "What kind of fear does that place in a community?" she asked.
Rep. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the House's no. 3 Democrat, envisioned being asked to prove his citizenship in an emergency room because of his name. "That's shameful. You wouldn't ask any other citizen that," he said.
The Federation of American Hospitals, American Hospital Association and other medical groups wrote lawmakers urging opposition to the bill, saying it "would virtually ensure that illegal immigrants will avoid getting the appropriate and timely lifesaving health care they need, when they need it."
Rohrabacher said illegal aliens make up 43% of those without health insurance, and thus account for at least $9 billion of the $21 billion that hospitals reported in uncompensated health services last year. The office of Sen. Jon Kyl., R-Ariz., who was behind the $1 billion in the Medicare bill, put the annual cost of treating undocumented residents at about $1.45 billion.
Same as the '86 Reagan amnesty. A duo of REALLY bad ideas.
I've got several great congressmen just a few miles away from me (behind the Orange Curtain), but I choose to think of Tancredo as my adopted congressman. His loud voice on immigration is unmatched in DC.
They are in the process of bankrupting the people and government with social programs, environmental programs and out-right GIVING money to socialist front groups, the UN and foreign countries.
I was disappointed that Dana too, voted for the Medicare bill. He's not perfect. He's heard from plenty grassroots folks about it. But at least he got the Congress to go on record like this.,
Imagine a session or two of Congress where only ordinary, common-sense citizens got to serve as Reps and Senators for a few years and who couldn't run for re-election (and thus be obsessed with it).
How long ago was your ER work? The last time I was in the ER (for a kidney stone), Thanksgiving 2002, two families brought in their sniffly children - and yes, I did hear them tell the admitting nurse that they were here for head colds.
Hopefully, their constituents will shame them for such treachery. I don't expect much from the Dem sell-outs, but MAYBE the Republicans can have some sense whacked back into them, or maybe we can just replace them.
Without either of them embracing illegal alien amnesty and bending over forwards for Vicente Fox, a hell of a lot more Republicans would have voted yes and not worried about going against the sentiments of the President.
Of course, they might have already been bought off by big business, so you're right, it may not have mattered. Thank God for cheap lettuce, eh?
1990 or so. Theoretically, they did have to take people with colds and such, because it could possibly be pneumonia or something. But they did turn away people who came in wanting to get varicose vein treatments, circumcisions and stitches removed, etc.
Whoops, I stand corrected ;)
Appeasement. Accomodating your own undoing rather than standing up against it.
Now that would be something to see, because it's obvious that most of the vote prostitutes care for nothing else but being reelected. This election cycle is going to be very interesting.
"But nurse - I have to get it done NOW!" Why the rush?
Yeah, but from what I've read the immigration authorities are pretty much told not to do their jobs anywhere but a stone's throw from the border.
Political correctness. Can't piss of the Hispanics, or else they might vote Democrat.
Everyone should remember that when the RNC comes calling for donations!
Good Lord that IS disturbing!
Virgil Goode (R, VA), one-of-the-87, Bump.
I brought out a nurse who explained that she had to take him to a doctor and gave her a list of urologists. The poor kid looked *so* relieved when his mom was told that it couldn't be done in the ER! But why do it to a kid at that age?!
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