It’s Tricky to Treat Many Immigrants, Hospitals Say
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Immigration poses challenges for the health care system, which often can’t get compensated for cost of care. A 2003 Florida Hospital Association survey of 39 hospitals found the medical centers gave away $40.2 million in charity care for illegal immigrants. That didn’t take into account the noncitizens who are here legally but who are uninsured and underemployed and are likely to land in emergency rooms.
The United States has about 36 million immigrants, a third of whom are estimated to be here illegally, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. How to pay for their medical care is part of a broader debate on immigration policy and on what to do about the country’s out-of-control health care costs.
In many ways, the immigrants’ stories are no different than those of uninsured citizens, who have medical doors shut on them and debt collectors chasing for impossible-to-pay medical bills when they get care. But the challenges of being a noncitizen and uninsured—and the challenges of caring for them—are even greater than they are for uninsured Americans.
Consider:
o Medicaid will pay for emergency treatment for noncitizens, but the payments stop when the condition is no longer considered an emergency—even if the patient requires prolonged hospital care. Hospitals are not permitted to bill patients for the difference. At Lee Memorial Health System, it costs about $1,700 a day to stay in the hospital. Hospital officials say they end up writing off the extended stay.
o Noncitizens are not eligible for regular Medicaid or subsidized health insurance plans for children.
o Uninsured people of all stripes end up in emergency rooms for care, but immigrants do so at higher rates, according to the Florida Hospital Association. The emergency room is the costliest way to deliver medical care, and it’s also the place forbidden by federal law from turning anyone away. At Lee Memorial, the average ER visit cost is $325.
o Hospital social workers must turn into sleuths trying to track the identities of immigrant patients who come into the trauma center unconscious—a challenge if they’re illegal, lacking identification and their friends and family are fearful of speaking with anyone in a perceived position of authority.
o These same social workers sometimes struggle to find follow-up care for patients, who may need home health, rehabilitation or family members to care for them after discharge from the hospital. Frequently, they come across workers who share housing with other workers, but not spouses or relatives who could offer such care.
o Immigrants are flooding delivery rooms to give birth to children, who are automatically U.S. citizens. In 2005 and 2006 alone, Lee County saw a total of about 2,100 babies born to illegal-immigrant mothers, state birth records show.
These children, in turn, often qualify for Medicaid or other subsidized health plans. The Center for Immigration Studies report found in Florida 18 percent of immigrant-headed households had at least one family member who qualified for Medicaid as opposed to 11 percent of native households.
The issue, suggested Steven Camarota, author of the Center for Immigration Studies report, is American immigration policy opens the door to undereducated, low-wage workers who will need American support ranging from Medicaid to food assistance. Forty-seven percent of immigrants are uninsured or on Medicaid compared with 26 percent for native born.
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Email Jennifer Booth Reed at jreed@news-press.com.
(Posted on January 3, 2008)
Comments
A local tame report. My wife was in emergency at Lee Hospital and in the large crowded surgery waiting room, I found myself in Mexico, only spanish spoken here. Even worse, the surgical receptionist confused issues by not communicating in English
effectively. Our incompetant feds, state, and local gov’t officials must understand our costs and pain and be voted out for lack of practical immigration laws,in particular the infamous ‘Kennedy anchor baby law’.
Posted by Paddy at 6:53 PM on January 3
This is very old news in to the Southwest. As I have reported before, in Sonoma County, CA, a couple hospitals are closing, due to this abuse.
Posted by Whiteplight at 6:57 PM on January 3
A proposal: People who can’t pay for their own health care should be sent to “the charity hospital.” That hospital should be the designated recipient for all illegals. The quality of care in that hospital should reflect its financial strength.
Posted by Reader-1 at 8:51 PM on January 3
I still do not understand why they come to the US to give birth. According to article 30 of the mexican constitution, they are still mexican citizens.
Posted by flyingtiger at 9:01 PM on January 3
The worst place to go is the ER. You will really get sick and catch their diseases just waiting to be seen, if ever. I absolutely detest what has happened to our country since the 1965 Immigration Act was forced onto White America. Give me the 40’s and 50’s anyday of the week. What peace we had then compared to now. Not a day goes by without nonwhites destroying our country more and more.
Posted by at 9:05 PM on January 3
“The emergency room is the costliest way to deliver medical care, and it’s also the place forbidden by federal law from turning anyone away.”
They know this. It is the absolute main reason immigrants, legal and illegal, crowd up emergency rooms. Illegals know they won’t be turned away or turned in and legal immigrants don’t have to pop for the cost of the health benefits even if their job offers them. Neither of them will actually pay for the service in the end.
Posted by idareya at 9:17 PM on January 3
“centers gave away $40.2 million in charity care for illegal immigrants”
Gave away my foot. We who pay for our medical insurance via deductions to our lousy pay checks paid for it via hospital padding of our medical bills.
Read this WSJ article about a man who got a $1.2 MILLION dollar bill at the California Pacific Medical Center for a 5 month stay.
MAXED OUT - As Medical Costs Soar, The Insured Face Huge Tab
Posted by at 9:26 PM on January 3
Another White Man’s Burden.
Posted by LOGIC at 11:57 PM on January 3
Keep voting for the same old tired corrupt politicians.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
If you want results put some traditional tough types in power that will do something not pander and accomodate.
Unless you want to live in a third world country.
Posted by at 1:20 AM on January 4
“Gave away my foot. We who pay for our medical insurance via deductions to our lousy pay checks paid for it via hospital padding of our medical bills.
Read this WSJ article about a man who got a $1.2 MILLION dollar bill at the California Pacific Medical Center for a 5 month stay.”
> Yes, the problem goes two ways; There are those who run up bills and flee and there is the industry that adds up expenses quicker than any middle class person could hope to pay for with cash. The corruption/cheating goes both ways.
I have long said and still believe that as long as we have private corporations (insurance companies) issuing stock to investors (seeking to profit from disease, illness and injury) we will never have a good health care system. As it is now, it is like a game to see who can rip it off and who it can rip off.
Will it get even worse before it is made better?
Posted by Whiteplight at 12:48 PM on January 4
“Keep voting for the same old tired corrupt politicians.”
Barak Obama is neither tired nor old but rest assured that he will do the same thing. And mark my words, he WILL be the next President.
Posted by at 2:56 PM on January 4
When these immigrants don’t get seen rightaway they offen make death threats to the med staff & security is an on going problem in ER’s In the main county hospital in LA a patient shot and killed a secuity officer and a couple of Doc’s. In one I worked at an immigrant from Palistine threatened to shoot the staff with his AK-47. The hospital adminstration couldn’t care less. Yes ER’s are good places to avoid.
Posted by Burr Hamilton at 3:55 PM on January 4
I have a better proposal.
People who are treated but don’t pay should have immediately their immigration staus checked, and if they are illegal, they should be sent back to their native country, via U.S. immigration authorities, with a bill for their government to pay.
And if their government refuses to pay, that amount should be automatically subtracted from any international assistance that that country receives from the U.S. (Mexico receives billions of dollars, enough to cover medial expenses of Mexicans that are in the U.S. illegally.)
Lawful visitors (on immigrant or non-immigrant visas) or their sponsors should be billed for the services, with proviso that they will get deported if the bill doesn’t get paid in full.
The bottom line is, that soliciting medical care and refusing to pay for it is stealing. There were people who worked hard to provide the medical care and expensive equipment and facilities were tied up, so not paying the providers would be highly unethical. Tolerating this kind of extortion will move us one step closer to become a country ridden by crime and corruption, as Mexico is today.
Posted by A Reader at 5:50 PM on January 4
“The bottom line is, that soliciting medical care and refusing to pay for it is stealing.” Posted by A Reader at 5:50 PM on January 4
I agree with that statement, however where I live they don’t let you pay off your bill. I owe about $11,000 for some outpatient treatment. The hospital’s “payment plan” works like this. If you owe $500 you have one year to pay it off. If you owe $11,000 you have one year to pay it off. If you can’t do that they send it to collections. I would gladly have given them maybe $100/month, but they didn’t want it, so now it’s in collections.
Posted by at 9:38 AM on January 5
I am a doctor. I work in labor and delivery in a Virginia academic hospital. About one third to one half of my patients coming for delivery are hispanic, with the occasional individual from the Sudan, etc. Our hospital has been forced to install a phone system for translation—name the language and push a button and enter a code(so that we can be billed for the service). We are not a charity hospital and must make money or close but we are a major regional referral center. Should we close there are many patients who will find it very difficult to receive care, at least care for high risk obstetrics.
There is one reason that this is all the case, that so many hospitals are closing in the wake of the tide of illegals and it is as you may have guessed related to an action of the federal government. The Emergency Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) was passed by congress under Regan. It stipulates that any hospital must care for anyone regardless of ability to pay or immigration status in cases of “emergency”. All labor is defined as an emergency. Just about anything you can imagine is defined by the law as an emergency, including a hang nail. I believe that the year that EMTALA passes was 1986. Hundreds of hospitals have closed and are in the process of closing their doors since that legislation. My suggestion is that EMTALA be repealed along with birth right citizenship. Both would shelter the American people from the alien invasion.
It is also not just the Mexicans and other hispanics that are abusing the system. Some years ago I was called to take care of a woman who had come in on a tourist visa from India. She was a renal failure patient—required dialysis every few days—once here she received her dialysis on a regular basis for free—she was also placed on the kidney transplant list, in competition with American citizens with insurance. The fact that our medical system is obligated to take everyone regardless of ability to pay is well known in the third world. It is time to stop it cold.
Posted by at 9:45 AM on January 5
“It’s Tricky to Treat Many “Immigrants”,(qoutes mine)Hospitals Say.”
That’s funny, from everything I’ve read, it’s apparently “tricky”, for them to treat Americans, since they are always asking for insurance documents and worried their not going to get paid. Immigrants usually get taken care of Pronto with little hassle. Unless, thousands of bloggers have been lying.
Posted by Bobby at 6:29 PM on January 5
It is truly sad, but the government and elected officials are a reflection of the society it represents.
A sick society yields a sick government.
Posted by at 12:16 AM on January 6