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Posted on 10/26/2011 11:28:15 AM PDT by moonshinner_09
GALVESTON, Texas—by Doug Miller/KHOU TV 11 News & khou.com - An illegal immigrant who was paralyzed in an accident says officials at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston are pressuring him to go back to Mexico.
Francisco Martinez is a Mexican immigrant laborer who is in the United States illegally and now needs constant, expensive medical care.
KHOU 11 News spoke with Martinez Tuesday outside UTMB’s John Sealy Hospital. He was accompanied by his 7-month-old son and his common-law wife, Brandi Cullen Valderram.
Martinez has been at UTMB ever since a workplace accident three months ago left him paralyzed from the chest down.
“There was no insurance. And since we’ve been here they’ve been telling us that there’s no other option except for him to go to Mexico. They’ve been trying to push, push, push, push, push,” said Cullen Valderram.
She said the hospital even offered a free flight to Mexico. But, speaking through an interpreter, Martinez said he doesn’t want to go.
“What I want to do is only walk,” he said. UTMB wouldn’t comment on camera, but in a written statement a spokesman said:
”Under state and federal laws we are obligated to provide emergency treatment without regard to citizenship, legal status or ability to pay.”
But UTMB is in a financial bind, because the law doesn’t reimburse the hospital for what it’s spending to treat Martinez.
People who work with indigent immigrants say they see cases like this all the time.
(Excerpt) Read more at kfdm.com ...
Send him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to private residence.
Reminds me of the illegal on life support in a vegetative state. His family fought like hell to keep him in the US- even though they weren’t contributing a penny to his care.
I think he ended up being sent to a rehab ctr in Mexico.
Now, this guy needs to be sent back along with his UNMARRIED girlfriend and kid. Unless he is prepared to ante up the cost of his care. And don’t get me started on his employer. Should hold this employer of illegals accountable for the cost of his bills so taxpayers won’t be stuck.
And they do have rehab centers in Mexico so ship him back to his family there.
And yes, just call me heartless. I don’t give a flip.
Let the company that hired him pay the bills. He is their responsibility, imo.
If he had been legal he would have worker’s comp. They exploited him, now he is UTMB’s responsibility. I hope he sues the sh1t out of them!
I don’t give a flying fart what happens to this guy, as long as it happens outside the US. This sob story is wrong on about a dozen different levels. All of which screw American tax payers!
This is a ticking time bomb people, one from which the nation will not recover. When the aging population of illegal laborors, construction workers, food handlers, maids etc eventually ripens as a demographic, there will be a deluge of claims which will be the proverbial final nail in the coffin of America. Think Cloward-Piven on steroids. This one guy is just a harbinger of things to come.
”Under state and federal laws we are obligated to provide emergency treatment without regard to citizenship, legal status or ability to pay.”
Three months on, it’s no longer an emergency. We had one of these situations at Wilford Hall Medical Center in the early 90s - we called him “Juan Doe”, fight victim as I recall, it took forever to find any family and when we did, they didn’t want him back. Over a YEAR later, we ended up putting him in an ambulance and taking him to the border, where he was transferred to a Mexican ambulance and taken home.
COJ - see my post #8. Same guy?
Colonel, USAFR
Have a heart, people.../s/ with a ;~)
Well, this is one of the reasons Perry was looking for a joint insurance agreement between Mexico and Texas.
People here ridiculed it, but the thing is that it would actually make Mexico responsible for some of these expenses. And it would also make it easier for older Americans who go to Mexico for various forms of treatment.
So, where’s ICE, huh? Once again, nowhere to be found. They should be escorting the criminal back across the border as I type and send Calderon the bill.
One Texas hospital did bill Mexico $60,000 for expenses from delivering so many mexikids in one year. It was bankrupting the hospital. They sent a bill to Mexico and I remember in the article there was someone in the Mexican gov’t who received the bill and was laughing about it saying, “Who do they think is going to pay for this.” But in Spanish of course.
I know. Keep sending them bills and keep track of the bottom line. Every few weeks publish the amount every month for the amounts owed to US hospitals.
I went in for a proceedure some years ago and they wanted me to pay up front because it wasn’t covered by insurance. The amount was significantly more than what we’d first been told and after talking to the business office we found out we were having to foot the bill from the previous patient who’d skipped out back to whatever country they were from.
Right below the Debt clock we need....a clock for Medicare expenses...a clock for illegal medicaid...a clock for children born to illegals....a clock for legal medicaid...a food stamp clock....a child support clock......etc.
We need a 50 story building for wake up clocks. When someone asks for govt support we can just point to a clock!
America is a very sick country in many ways. We’ll be chicken soup before long.
Since we have such minimal ethics any longer or even a journalists that writes such a flaming article but fails to mention who he worked for, we’ll just continue to wallow in these expensive issues until we are flat broke. I get ill when I hear 20-somethings and 30-somethings who beg for them and/or their offspring for medical care. They didn’t have insurance as it was too costly. But, they have a new truck and iPhone and some a decent home!! No priorities except live life to the fullest. Then, those of us who work long hours and make a decent pay have to pay for their care. We are a “FREE” country!!!
Yeah, I know what you mean.
This seems simple to me. A company hired an illegal alien. He got injured doing that job. The company should pay the bills.
If the story is accurate, it seems logical to bill the company where he was injured.
I’m guessing the guy won’t reveal who hired him, but I bet a PI could find out.
In a benchmark case dealing with the obligations of hospitals toward uninsured illegal immigrants, a jury in Stuart, Fla., decided Monday that Martin Memorial Medical Center did not act unreasonably when it chartered a plane and repatriated a severely brain-injured Guatemalan patient against the will of his guardian. Judge James W. Midelis instructed the jury in state court late last week that because of a Florida appeals court decision, it was already “a matter of law” that the patient, Luis Alberto Jiménez, had been unlawfully detained and deprived of his liberty.
Still, the jury found that Martin Memorial had not committed false imprisonment and was not liable for damages.
In a statement, the hospital, which provided Mr. Jiménez life-saving care and kept him as a ward for several years before undertaking his repatriation in 2003, applauded the jury’s decision.
At the same time, the hospital’s president and chief executive, Mark E. Robitaille, chastised “our political leadership” for failing to address the challenges facing hospitals that provide uncompensated health care to illegal immigrants.
Further into story..Mr. Jiménez’s cousin and legal guardian, Montejo Gaspar, filed the lawsuit seeking nearly $1 million to cover the costs of providing care for Mr. Jiménez in Guatemala and seeking damages for what he essentially saw as the hospital’s kidnapping and deportation of his profoundly disabled cousin.
In Florida, Martin Memorial, a nonprofit hospital, spent $1.5 million to care for Mr. Jiménez. The costs especially mounted because of a conundrum faced by the hospital. As a condition of receiving Medicaid and Medicare money, the hospital was required to care for Mr. Jiménez until it could properly discharge him under federal law.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/us/28deport.html
I had surgery years ago and had a balance not covered by insurance. I called to pay it and was asked if I wanted to ‘settle’. I was like, “Whhhaaaattt??” I was told that people who have insurance get padded bills to cover the costs for the uninsured and that if I paid it in full then I would get a biiiggg break. My bill was around $1300 and I ended up paying $600.
Then the next time I ended up in the ER from heat exhaustion and hypothermia (yes ‘hypo’, my temp dropped to 91) I had to wait FOUR hours behind the illegals. (Pretty easy to tell the illegals- no English, no money and lots of kids.)
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