2 immigrants found dead in stifling truck - 2 Men hauling illegals face murder charges
Posted on 07/31/2002 5:29:44 PM PDT by Brownie74
Actually, that's a very good idea and it shpould be SOP.
Excellent point.
By Julia Malone, Palm Beach Post Washington Bureau Tuesday, July 30, 2002
WASHINGTON -- In Phoenix, some emergency rooms have shut down or reduced services. In Texas, hospitals have passed along higher costs to local taxpayers. And in Florida, a Martin County hospital is stuck with nearly $1.5 million in unpaid expenses for just two patients.
Those are some of the effects hospitals trace to illegal immigrants, who arrive at their facilities with serious illnesses and no means to pay for care.
"It goes into the millions of dollars -- possibly billions," said Carla Luggiero, a Washington lobbyist for the American Hospital Association. Even so, she said that hospitals have no exact count of the cost because they do not collect data on the legal status of patients.
Under federal law, hospitals are required to provide care to anyone who shows up with a life-threatening condition, regardless of ability to pay or legal status. If the patient is an illegal immigrant, the U.S. government provides only limited reimbursement.
Amid growing "uncompensated" costs to hospitals, the National Association of Counties recently conducted a survey of 42 counties, and 29 cited recent immigration, legal and illegal, as one reason.
The problem, once concentrated in border states like Texas and California, is now expanding, Luggiero said. She said that it has spread to New York, Illinois, North Carolina and, especially, to Florida.
Florida has come into the spotlight in part because of cases such as Luis Alberto Jimenez, a 30-year-old Guatemalan who sustained a brain injury two years ago in an automobile accident.
Jimenez, an illegal immigrant with no money and no local family, has spent the last two years living at Martin Memorial Hospital in Stuart. Caring for him has cost more than $900,000 so far, and the bill goes up $500 each day, said Patricia Austin, the hospital's spokeswoman.
Martin Memorial has found a rehab facility in Guatemala that is willing to take Jimenez, but the hospital is still negotiating with the patient's court-appointed attorney, who has resisted the move. If an agreement is reached, the hospital will still have to send a nurse to accompany him on the trip, Austin said.
Michael Banks, Jimenez's attorney, says nothing has changed. "The ball is in the hospital's court," he said Monday.
He has asked the hospital to put Jimenez in a rehabilitation center in the United States, which he claims would be 10 times cheaper than keeping him in the hospital room.
He contends the government facilities in Guatemala are not capable of providing the quality of care his client needs, but there are private facilities in that country that would qualify.
Earlier, a 57-year-old Jamaican spent 17 months at the same hospital, running up a bill of about $500,000. He was sent to a facility in his home country.
The two cases combined took a big bite out of the hospital's charitable fund, which was budgeted at $29 million last year.
St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach treats one or two illegal immigrants a week. "It is a significant problem," said St. Mary's spokesman Don Chester. He said illegal immigrants run up thousands of dollars in bills, though he could not provide specifics.
A spokeswoman for Delray Medical Center says the hospital treats about 75 illegal immigrants a month.
Martin Memorial's Austin said the local hospital communities must pick up the tab under the current setup.
"Each hospital is pretty much left to their own devices as to how to cope with this problem," Austin said. She said her hospital would deal with it by cutting costs and increasing fund-raising efforts.
Her hospital has also fought back by pressuring Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, to take up the issue.
Foley has study initiated Foley has taken the approach of finding out how much the health care costs and then trying to collect the fees by working with the State Department to deduct them from any foreign aid going to the home country of the alien.
Foley has not drafted any legislation. He has convinced the U.S. General Accounting Office to conduct what could be the most comprehensive study of the problem, an effort that could take several months.
That may not be easy, since hospitals as a rule don't keep track of who's an illegal resident. Ann Ward, spokeswoman for the Texas Hospital Association, said that most don't ask.
"We have a large number of folks who are undocumented," said Conchita Ruiz-Topinka, spokeswoman for Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. "If they can prove they live in Miami-Dade -- regardless of immigration status -- we take care of them. I don't think we know how many of the indigent we serve are undocumented."
She said that the hospital does ask if a patient is a Cuban or Haitian, since that could mean that their expenses will be underwritten by the federal refugee program. But even that has brought protests from some community groups, Ruiz-Topinka said.
Ward of the Texas Hospital Association reported a similar situation. "We don't keep track," she said. "A lot of hospitals feel that you cannot discriminate if they're not a legal resident."
Lawmakers in Congress have introduced a range of bills dealing with the problem. Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and John McCain, R-Ariz., recently proposed Medicaid reimbursement for some medical care, including kidney dialysis and chemotherapy as well as prenatal care for illegal residents.
Sen. John Kyl and Rep. Jim Kolbe, both Arizona Republicans, have also proposed forms of federal assistance to hard-hit border areas.
However, the legislation does not appear to be headed toward passage soon.
Post staff writers Pat Moore and Phil Galewitz contributed to this story.
C O R R E C T I O N
The are not undocumented imigrants. They are people trying to sneak into the country without filing the required paperwork and going before an INS officer for an entrance interview.
R E W R I T E
Another tractor-trailor rig filled with people trying to enter the United States illegally has turned up - this time on the eastern fringe of San Antonio.
WHY????
REASON: All articles posted prior to 9/4/01 are currently locked read-only. See Notice - Old threads temporarily locked
We, the citizens, are going to have to be the interior enforcement once the trucks start rolling illegals all across the country. Keep your eyes open and if you see anything suspicious, pick up your cell phone and call your state police and if they don't respond keep calling until they do. Then call the local media.
Free medical treatment, free education, if your child is born here, it is automatically a citizen, they are talking about granting citizenship to thousands of illegals already here, availability of jobs, .... why don't they just tear down the border and put up billboards.
May I suggest this billboard!!
You are right and the police will arrest them, but the INS doesn't seem interested. What it's going to take I have no idea.
In this state the welfare recipients and the illegal aliens get treated like kings, don't have to pay for anything, and the people who work for a living have a rapidly increasing large bill to pay.
Jorge Bush thinks all of this is OK. Will I vote for him ever again? NO.
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