How treating migrants may be crippling hospital care
“The federal law that put the hospitals on the hook for the medical bills of illegals goes by the acronym EMTALA–Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. It says that anybody who shows up in an ER must get screened, treated and stabilized, regardless of citizenship or ability to pay.
But since its passage in 1985, the definition of emergency has evolved to include just about anything, and because Congress didn’t fund the requirement, hospitals have had to eat the costs as word has spread that the federal goodie wagon is parked at the ER door.
In cities with huge illegal populations, such as Los Angeles, the effects have been disastrous. In its spring 2005 issue, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reported that between 1993 and 2003, 60 California hospitals closed because, for several reasons including EMTALA, half of their services became unpaid.”
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{ 6 comments }
Oddly enough, the federal government, in an attempt to pander to immigrants, has agreed to foot the bill for “illegals.” See this article:
“Health care providers can charge the government for emergency care provided to illegal aliens beginning Tuesday.”
But the federal government won’t be footing the bill for those uninsured US citizens I cared for in the ER last night.
You do realize the government really doesn’t pay for anything. They simply take OUR money, launder it, then spend it as if it were their own.
Kevin, you need to change your headline. It would be horribly unjust to imply that “migrants” should not be getting health care.
What you mean is illegal immigrants.
To Anon 8:30 — you are absolutely right, but it’s not PC to refer to illegal immigrants as such, had you noticed? hence the touchier feelier ‘migrants’ — it’s considered more ummm neutral. Hence all the more reason to refer to the persons concerned as illegal immigrants, because it IS their status as illegal that is the issue here. Good call.
I believe the term is “anchor baby”. The issue that being born in the USA automatically makes you a citizen.
Where are these illegal migrants going except to work in U.S. industries that are willing to hire them on the sly? They know they can get their labor on the cheap while not having to pay for benefits that would at least bring their employees to the hospital with some form of insurance when they needed care. It is as much the employers of illegals as it is the federal government that is dumping on the border hospitals. And the abject failure of the Federal government to halt the flow of illegals is indirectly subsidizing the labor costs of these same industries, at the expense of state and local governments, and private hospitals and their staff. And it isn’t just a border problem either; the same problems are happening in the mid-Atlantic states, too.
It isn’t just pandering to the voters; there is quite a bit of pandering to the sleazier business interests as well. I don’t hear George W. complaining too much, I wonder why?
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