US to Pay Hospitals for Illegals' Care

Associated Press | 05/09 | KEVIN FREKING

[Boston Blackie]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Health care providers can charge the government for emergency care provided to illegal aliens beginning Tuesday.

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[beaelysium]

They have taken over. We are the slaves, the illegals are our overlords.

[Nathan Zachary]

We might as well annex the place and get it over with. Then at least we can collect some taxes from them.

[cosine]

Actually, this is an improvement. Congress long ago passed EMTALA which says that anyone showing up at an emergency room must be treated. It never did bother to say who was going to pay for this little mandate. The result has been an increasing tendency for people who don't want to pay to use ERs as the 7-11 of health care convenience. Even to the extent that they give fake names and IDs.

The federal government said it would pay by giving disproportionate share payments (aka pork) to states. They were theoretically supposed to pay for the care EMTALA required but the money doesn't necessarily go to the places that actually get stuck with the bill. A little suburban hospital in my city had an illegal construction worker dumped in their ER after he fell three stories. He was paralyzed and they had to absorb the half a million his treatment cost. Since they don't see a lot of Medicaid patients they didn't get a dime from the state DSH fund.

As a result, hospitals in areas with lots of illegals (Los Angeles, Texas, Arizona)have been going bankrupt. This is a stopgap measure to make sure that they people that deliver the care the Feds require at least get paid for it. The other good thing is that it will give us an idea of what it is really costing. Currently costs are buryied in individual hospital profit and loss statements.

The next problem is how to pay the docs that staff the ERs. When they treat a free care patient the hospitals make them eat it. As a result they are not willing to staff ERs...

As with so many other problems in health care, the root cause is forcing people to give their services away without expecting payment.

[television is just wrong]

like I've said before, they have the best medical care. Better than Congress themselves. EVERYTHING IS FREE. To them paid for by you and me.

[television is just wrong]

you are right. 1 billion will not even cover the cost in California.

[gubamyster]

ping

[Nathan Zachary]

Send Mexico the bill, along with the body, dead or alive.

[spectre]

How many ILLEGAL alien "emergency room" visits are truly emergencies?

I can't wait till I go there for a REAL emergency, and be told I have to suffer for hours because the place is already half full of ILLEGALS getting free treatment.

Oh joy, joy.

[mmercier]

"It seems to me that if the federal government has abdicated its responsibility for immigration enforcement, then it's responsible for making those jurisdictions whole," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank based in Washington

Ya what a good plan. Citizens want the boarder controlled and the government won't do this; therefore charge the citizens to pay for the illegals and there is no longer a problem...

I have a problem with this, but see why there are those who think this is a peachie idea. This is simply an attempt to diffuse the most visible problem people have with illegal immigration.. the huge number of local hospitals run into bankruptcy by illegals.

Take Medicare money from citizens and give it to illegals; makes sense until this program calcifies (which it surely will) and direct income tax extracted from payrolls starts to automatically increase as Mexico moves here one person at a time.

Why not give the billion dollars to the boarder control
effort every year... Someone slap me, I'm starting to have visions or grandeur.

[television is just wrong]

I'm in favor of that.

[captainblacksmith]

Nationalized healthcare paid for by the US government starts on Tuesday, but only if you are a citizen of another country.

[Nathan Zachary]

I've had it, there just too much rotten news today, I have to go to a happy place.
I'm going to go outside and do some target shooting.

[NEBUCHADNEZZAR1961]

HOw about billing Mexico for the cost of educating, feeding, housing, medicating, etc.?

[riri]

Nationalized healthcare paid for by the US government starts on Tuesday, but only if you are a citizen of another country

Crazy. And where exactly do they plan to come up with this cash?

[engrpat]

To answer your question: Two days before Christmas my wife injured her knee. We went to the local emergency facility, knee in a ice pack, and waited 4 hours to be seen and actually didn't get out for a total of 7 hours. The waiting room had I would say 15-18 waiting to be seen along with families. Of that there were 2 English speaking people that we encountered. Odds say the others really shouldn't have been there.

[Nathan Zachary]

From your pocket.

[riri]

Where do you live? I have a friend who brought a teenage son in for a fracture or similar injury, she was there 22 hours. But, I am in Arizona.

[The Duke]

So, somebody help me out here. Does this mean if I learn to speak Spanish and don't take my billfold that I get free health care?

[engrpat]

I am in Arlington, Texas. I know the situation in Arizona. I was born and raised in Tucson and still have most of my family in Arizona. One is a hospital administrator in Tucson.

[Exton1]

ping