Posted on 03/01/2005 6:03:18 AM PST by Dog Gone
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RESOURCES
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| OUT-OF-COUNTY PATIENTS More than 1,000 patients from other counties were admitted to Harris County Hospital District facilities last year. They're often drawn by the county's better facilities and easier eligibility requirements: • Harris County: A family of four making up to $19,350 a year qualifies for free care, and those making up to twice that pay on a sliding scale, often with minimal fees. • State standard, applied by many surrounding counties: A family of four qualifies only if it earns less than $4,064. |
He suffered a heart attack in late December and was treated at a Harlingen hospital. But immigration authorities balked at paying for heart surgery and released him, advising him to seek treatment on his own, he says.
Still weak, he made his way to Houston and eventually to Ben Taub General Hospital, where he underwent heart surgery in January.
As the cash-strapped Harris County Hospital District operates on a budget that can't keep up with the needs of the county's poor, almost a third of its admitted hospital patients are coming from outside the county and even outside the nation.
Over the past 10 years, the district has provided $510 million in unreimbursed care to illegal immigrants, the district says. Another $101 million was spent on unreimbursed care for residents of surrounding counties.
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Radack and others are less enthusiastic about providing free care to residents from other counties.
The district last year spent 10.4 percent of its budget on unreimbursed care for illegal immigrants — $80 million out of a $770 million budget, a Radack aide found while researching district spending.
Federal law requires hospitals to treat everyone who comes to emergency rooms. Passed by Congress two years ago, the Medicare Modernization Act was supposed to provide some relief by funneling $1 billion over four years to hospitals providing emergency care to illegal immigrants.
Texas was to get $47.5 million a year. The hospital district assumed it would be in line for some of the money and that it would help offset other cuts in Medicare, said Clifford Bottoms, the district's chief financial officer.
But state officials decided the money would go to private hospitals that provide care to illegal immigrants, not charity hospitals such as Ben Taub, Bottoms said.
Money has become so tight at the district that its officials are contemplating severe measures to balance the upcoming annual budget, to be considered by Commissioners Court on March 8. These include limiting patient prescriptions covered by the district and cutting available beds at Ben Taub and Lyndon B. Johnson hospitals.
Even though demand for the district's services has risen 8.2 percent annually since 2000, the district is expected to be given an annual budget next month calculated on a 1.3 percent increase in patient demand.
Not everyone agrees that the district should feel compelled to provide treatment for undocumented immigrants.
"It's going to break all of us. There's no way we can provide health care for illegal aliens," said J.C. Hernandez, founder and president of Houston-based Americans for Zero Immigration.
County officials don't buy the argument that the county ought to refuse treatment to illegal immigrants.
"It's a moral issue; it's a public health issue," said County Judge Robert Eckels. "This is how we do things in America."
Radack said the federal government should increase funding for such care because it has the mandate of keeping people from crossing the borders and isn't doing enough to prevent illegal immigration.
Advocates say illegal immigrants would have few places to turn if the district closed its doors on them.
Mark Zwick, who runs Casa Juan Diego, a nonprofit Houston shelter for immigrants, said that in the past year, four illegal immigrants fell from scaffolding while working for low wages on construction sites in Harris County. The accidents left three of the workers paraplegics and the fourth a quadriplegic, he said.
Casa Juan Diego cared for them while they recuperated in one of its Heights-area homes or paid for them to be cared for elsewhere.
Ricardo lives in one of the homes and hopes to regain his strength following his heart surgery. When he does, he will work as an electrician or painter and begin to send money back to Honduras, where his wife is trying to care for their children, he said through a translator.
"They depend on me," he said. Ricardo said he is grateful for the care he has received at Ben Taub. "They attended me very well."
Ricardo asked not to be identified fully because he is in the country illegally.
"If they are building our houses, mowing our grass, watching our children, the least we can do is to take care of them when they are sick," Zwick said. "To abandon people when they work very inexpensively is unconscionable."
County officials don't take issue with that but do complain about another strain on the district's budget — providing unreimbursed care to residents from surrounding counties.
Last year, the district spent more than $15 million on such care.
Radack said he will ask County Attorney Mike Stafford to see if civil action can be taken against out-of-county residents who don't pay their bills and will ask District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal whether criminal charges could be brought.
"This money is coming straight out of the pockets of the Harris County taxpayers. This is a theft of services," he said.
Intended to provide a safety net for the county's poor, the district now serves as a regional safety net, Bottoms said.
Trauma patients from around the region are taken to Ben Taub because it is a top facility. And residents from surrounding counties turn to the district because fewer services are offered to the poor in most nearby counties, Bottoms said.
Some out-of-county residents falsely claim to live in Harris County because it is easier to qualify for indigent health care than in most surrounding counties.
"You have to be dirt poor now before we'll take you," said County Commissioner Tom Stavinoha of Fort Bend County, where a family of four earning more than about $4,000 a year doesn't qualify for free care.
State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, has filed a bill that would allow a regional hospital that serves as a draw to surrounding counties to recoup some of the costs of treating out-of-county residents.
The bill would require all counties to pay for health care for people with annual incomes as high as 200 percent of the federal poverty level. That poverty level is $19,350 for a family of four.
Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee said more federal funding, not state or county money, is needed to pay for health care statewide.
"You aren't going to get anything from small counties with one bulldozer," he said.
"If they are building our houses, mowing our grass, watching our children, the least we can do is to take care of them when they are sick," Zwick said.
Okay.........well since they are NOT doing any of that for me then I don't have to pay for them right?
bump
Well, Mr Zwick, the way I see it is that what is unconscionable is for you to encourage illegal immigration by offering "very inexpensive work" and then hiring these people knowing they are illegals. Are you in the habit of aiding, abetting and harboring criminals, Mr. Zwick?
Radack and others are less enthusiastic about providing free care to residents from other counties.
That line got me too. Typical, they would rather provide free care to illegals than American citizens.
Americans first Mr Zwick!
Excellent post Dog Gone.
Steve Raddack and Robert Eckels are probably the two strongest Republican officeholders in Harris County, and long term committed conservatives. I'm proud to have voted for both of them. They are men of true character and wisdom in the mold of President Bush, unlike the cheap demagogues who play on the fears and prejudices of the insecure.
Ben Taub is a county owned charity hospital. Every year they have to make their case for increased funds from the county budget. And eventually, every year they get what they need. If it wasn't enough to treat our own Harris County indigent residents they wouldn't admit so many form out of county.
There isn't a county in this SMSA that isn't booming including Tom DeLay's Fort Bend County. The poor from the surrounding counties come because the care at Ben Taub is so superior.
There is no crises.
Speaking of expenses from over the border, a teacher from LA phoned into a talk show the other night. He earns $75,000 per year as a "special ed" teacher. He has 12 students in his class. All are illegals.
Great. If I ever need a heart transplant, I'll come on down to Texas and tell them I'm penniless and don't have a Social Security number. Sounds like about the only way an American gets a break.
You always get more of what you subsidize, and less of what you tax.
If Japan offered free heart surgery to any American in the country legal or not, they'd be doing a lot more heart surgery on Americans for free.
Despite the hysteria you see on immigration threads, the facts are that our economy is booming, crime is down, taxes are down, unemployment is down, and Americans are enjoying the highest standard of living in our history. (and our culture is not under any imaginable threat except from courts.)
Motion to strike. Will the court please direct the witness to answer the question?
True, but I wouldn't fall off a roof and break a leg just to get free treatment at Ben Taub.
The Houston population is 40% Hispanic, many of whom were recipients of Reagan's amnesty, and our economy is doing great.
How many guards per mile do you think it would require to keep laborers out, and how much is that going to cost?
I don't disagree with your overall assessment that hispanic immigration, both legal and illegal, has some beneficial effects on our economy. It would be interesting to see a study on it from someone other than advocacy group on either side of the issue. I agree that the economy is doing great locally, but taxes are increasing pretty fast to provide services to those unwilling or unable to pay for them. That becomes a severe problem to the retired on fixed incomes.
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