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.
I assume you're trying to be witty. Try again.
What makes anyone think that hospitals should be the places to try to enforce immigration laws?
As someone pointed out earlier, it should be enforced at the border, not requiring medical professionals to enforce it.
Another aspect is the sheer compassion. If you see someone on the street having a heart attack, do you acertain whether it's an illegal immigrant or not, before calling the paramedics?
And another very practical and very important reason: Suppose we have a terrorist attack with biological weapons, like smallpox or worse. Are you sure you want illegal aliens to not go to the doctor and not be diagnosed and keep spreading it?
This whole idea was ill conceived.
Yay, Jim Sensenbrenner!
Good point. It applies to communicable diseases in general, whether they're spread by terrorists or not. Widespread availability of effective health care is a national security interest and a public health interest. This legislation was a P.O.S. designed to cater to the raving-at-the-mouth loonies, and I'm glad it died.
Nope.
Deadly serious when suggesting a more appropriate forum for the comments submitted.
Beside being old and hackneyed and disingenuous and purposely misleading the comments were abandon by the DNC months ago when they were challenged.
Send a message to carville.com and ask for the latest editions.
Spare me the ad hominem bullcrap.
What do Bush and Rove have to do with a House vote?
If a person decides to bleed to death or get eaten by some disease instead of getting treatment followed by deportation, that's their business.
Besides, its so damn easy to get back into the U.S. it shouldn't bother them. As for crimes and plagues, they don't affect illegals only and I wouldn't worry about delays.
Fine, I'll see your student of history and raise you two fancy college degrees: You have to LEARN something from history, not just wring your hands and hope it doesn't happen again. I'd LIKE these Members of Congress to learn to have some backbone and stand up for what's right, not what's politically expedient or for what pie-in-the-sky idealism dictates them to.
Europe is being overrun right now by an underclass of young Arabs descended from workers brought in decades ago to take the jobs the Europeans didn't want to do (Sound familiar?). Now that unchecked immigration, illegal to no small degree, threatens to transform Europe into the next battleground of civilizations.
Islam will conquer through births what it could not take by war. Give it 20 more years and come to California, think you'll see and hear English and find American citizens as common as you do today?
I didn't see Clinton rebuke him and say "Um, excuse me, but that's OUR territory.
Similarly, I have yet to see Bush repudiate and reject such claims. Hmmm...
You can't tell me that the Administration's obscenely pro-illegal alien stances haven't influenced the GOP congressmen who follow the leader at every turn like little sheep, just like here on FR.
Even if many were bought off by big business, some would have the cajones to stand up to this if a Democrat were president and advocated amnesty, etc.
Pointing out the original source of the talking point is hardly ad hominem.
Pointing out the shameless attributes of the message is hardly bullcrap.
As I said: That dog don't bark in this backyard.
What caught me by surprise is that anyone would try that line of reasoning on a conservative forum and then feign indignation when challenged.
From the deep, deep deficit were already drowning in.
Living in L.A. County, I see the damage every day illegals are doing.
Overcrowded classrooms, clogged streets and freeways, dilapidated public health care systems, and of course, criminals who get to kill U.S. citizens and run off to Mexico to escape justice.
Muchas gracias, Mexico...
I don't think anyone is opposed to letting them get care, especially in emergencies. But the uninsured especially are using emergency rooms for basic care like colds and headaches.
It adds up and we foot the bill. Enough!
BUMP to that!
You are right. It's too bad we don't have a federal version of the California ballot initiative process. Fixes to the situation would pass in a heartbeat.
See my #91.
OK... Now go stand at a border surveillance post some night with some binoulars and patience and tell me if they are DOING their job!
Dreier... Ugh. Glad he didn't run for Senate. Then we'd have one more squish in the upper house.
Well it sure as hell isn't being enforced at the border, is it? By the number of illegal alien clown houses out there, I'd say no!
As someone pointed out earlier, it should be enforced at the border, not requiring medical professionals to enforce it.
I agree. No doctor is going to be an agent of the Border Patrol, we just want to know who doesn't belong here so the PROPER authorities can arrest and deport their asses.
Another aspect is the sheer compassion. If you see someone on the street having a heart attack, do you acertain whether it's an illegal immigrant or not, before calling the paramedics?
AGAIN... No one is saying don't treat illegals, period. We went through that crap with 187, again erroneously. Bring up words like "compassionate" and you just sound like another loser Dem.
And another very practical and very important reason: Suppose we have a terrorist attack with biological weapons, like smallpox or worse. Are you sure you want illegal aliens to not go to the doctor and not be diagnosed and keep spreading it?
Doubtful terrorists would attack illegal aliens, I think. They're much more likely to target them for conversion to Islam to rise up against their Yankee oppressors who stole the Southwest from them.
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