Posted on 07/12/2006 7:14:49 PM PDT by Dysart
FORT WORTH -- The Tarrant County League of Women Voters is joining another political advocacy group’s campaign to expand publicly funded healthcare to illegal immigrants through JPS Health Network clinics.
The group is expected to ask the Tarrant County Hospital District board Thursday to reverse its position on charity care for illegal immigrants at JPS clinics. The board could consider the request at its August meeting.
The board voted in 2004 to restrict charity care to legal residents of Tarrant County. Illegal immigrants can still access JPS clinics if they have health insurance or if they pay cash for services.
“I think the public needs to be aware that JPS is a public hospital district, and there is a mission to the poor and low-income residents of Tarrant County,” said Charlotte Hyams, first vice president of the Tarrant County League of Women Voters. “We are going to urge the board to reconsider their 2004 vote. We believe that JPS’ mission is to provide healthcare for the indigent, including the undocumented immigrants who live here.”
Under federal law, no patient can be denied treatment in an emergency room. The JPS board voted 6-4 to prevent illegal immigrants from utilizing the network’s charity program, Connection, following an opinion issued by the Texas attorney general that leaves the decision up to hospital districts whether to extend such programs to noncitizens.
Last month, Allied Communities of Tarrant asked the JPS board to include illegal immigrants in charity healthcare. Board Chairwoman Erma Johnson Hadley, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday, said last month that the board would consider the issue after JPS administrators studied the impact of such a policy change.
Some JPS board members have said that the taxpayer-supported hospital district must first serve the legal residents of Tarrant County before spending money on illegal immigrants. In an informal poll of the 11-member board, a majority say they would vote to continue prohibiting illegal immigrants from receiving charity care at JPS clinics.
JPS staff members are gathering information from other public hospitals to estimate the cost of “servicing the undocumented population,” said JPS spokesman Robert Earley, senior vice president of public affairs and advocacy.
“We are also in the midst of communicating with any and all sources to best determine what the undocumented population is for Tarrant County,” he said. “I have asked ACT to provide any numbers that they have.”
JPS is also analyzing its own records to help estimate how many illegal immigrants may live in Tarrant County. After JPS stopped serving illegal immigrants at its clinics in 2004, about 3,100 such patients were identified as enrolled in Connection, according to Star-Telegram archives.
Although the issue is not on today’s hospital board agenda, members of Allied Communities of Tarrant and the Tarrant County League of Women Voters said they will ask the board to vote on the policy at the August meeting.
“We are trying to maintain a relationship with JPS because they do a lot of good things,” said Patricia Gaffney, a spokeswoman for Allied Communities.
The group, which is made up of mostly church leaders, presented a plan to help JPS better reach the county’s indigent population and to help educate the public about how to access the public health system.
JPS officials say they would welcome a grassroots relationship with Allied Communities to better serve those in need of healthcare.
Hyams of the League of Women Voters said her group of about 150 members has studied the issue of healthcare for illegal immigrants since September. They will present their findings today at the JPS board meeting.
Here is some contact info:
League of Women Voters of Tarrant County
3212 Collinsworth
Fort Worth, Texas 76107
Telephone/FAX: 817 348-VOTE (817 348-8683)
Website: www.lwvtarrantcounty.org/
E-mail contacts:
Office: office@lwvtarrantcounty.org
President: [no name was listed] president@lwvtarrantcounty.org
The League of Women Voters is anti-gun, pro tax, pro illegal immigration.
My personal inclination would be to strip them of all their assets and give said assets to the richest 1% of taxpayers, and then sell them as sex slaves and use their profits to pay for what they want for the illegal immigrants. It will give them a whole new perspective on life in america.
Oh wait...where is the faithful OBL????
susie
Probably celebrating some Mexican holiday. :)
I was googling "Tarrant County League of Women Voters." Should have taken off the quotation marks. Duh! I know better.
Thanks for posting the info to the thread. I'll make good use of it!
I started out searching for it that way and then I changed the search terms to "Tarrant County" +"League of Women Voters" and finally got what I wanted.
Live and learn, eh? :^)
Instead of sticking the taxpayer with the bill for expanding healthcare for illegal aliens through the JPS Health Network, why don't you goody-goodies reach into your own pockets and pay for it yourselves?
Let's see how sorry you'd feel for those poor, pitiful illegals if you had to give up shopping at Neiman-Marcus and fancy lunches!!!
You rich society types who think you're so virtuous by being generous with OTHER people's money make me puke!
All this catering to illegal aliens is perverted. They are often being rewarded and given special perks BECAUSE they have broken laws. What a horrible example to impressionable youngsters as well as everyone else.
"Under federal law, no patient can be denied treatment in an emergency room."
RIGHT.
And so, these illegal invaders, and the parasitic employers who exploit them and don't provide any medical coverage, suck off the public ..... dole.
When Illegals get sick for ANYTHING they go to OUR hospital emergency rooms, interfere with treatment for major health problems with their minor problems and WE get to pay for it through OUR taxes and higher health insurance premiums. The hospitals must pass part of that cost onto OUR health insurance companies, part of it to the government (US) and part of it they just have to swallow - like we have had to swollow this kind of tripe from politically correct morons like these do-gooders for all too long now.
Unfortunately, I too wish my remark was only a bad attempt at some humor but - I live in Tarrant County and that ignorant bitch, speaking for the women voters in Tarrant County, gives me serious concern! So, no, I'm being as serious as a heart attack.
...in Mexico
susie
I've seen sinkspur on the Israeli war threads.
if illegals should go to the front of the line for the citizenship (shamnesty proposal), why not to the front of the line for health care?
it's par for the illegal course.
You're preaching to the choir here, you need to get you message to Charlotte Hyams, the first vice president of the Tarrant County League of Women Voters. (aka; dumb ass!)
Why can't these phony immigrants just get a legal ID, do the paperwork and be done with it...they only butt in line is because they're just to damn selfish to do it right...
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