Posted on 01/05/2012 2:46:10 AM PST by South40
An unpleasant new report claims that many hospitals in major metro areas are struggling with the growing problem of “permanent patients.”
What’s a “permanent patient”? According to the New York Times they are mostly illegal immigrants or people who lack insurance or their own housing that the hospital cannot turn away.
((snip))
The fact of the matter is that hospitals in metro areas that host a large illegal immigrant population are unable to turn away patients who have neither insurance nor proof that they are in the United States legally– two things necessary for discharge purposes and reimbursements, said Chui Man Lai, assistant vice president of patient services at a New York state hospital.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
*smiles*.......look into how many are “stored” in US mental hospital and at what cost
This is why our hospitals are closing; less Americans will have real access to healthcare by the end of Obama’s one-term rule, despite all of us having “free” healthcare. I guess by “free healthcare” he meant we could all access WebMD from the local library...
Illegal immigrants do not qualify for Medicaid, almost ensuring their stays at mental health hospitals could be an average of 25 days longer than other patients because they cannot easily be discharged to assisted living facilities or group homes after they are declared mentally stable
...not deported, but sent to a government paid home that is suppose to be for citizens
....read about the illegals in Mental Institutions a few years back costing the citizens of NJ 100 MILLION a year...there’s over two hundred in Jersey alone
Just legalize them. That will fix it. /s
At massive costs to those of us WITH insurance, you mean.
Absolutely not different than the inner-cities where 4 generations have had free medical care, just by going to the Emergency Room with runny noses, and drug overdoses....Medicaid (TAXPAYERS) are stuck with the costs, and what isn’t covered is made up in charges to Insured Patients.
Yes, it is. The hospital with an ER that was closest to my house closed years ago due to the millions it had been losing each year treating ILLEGAL aliens. Now there is but one hospital serving twice as many people and it is so overrun with ILLEGALs and other patients the average wait for non-life threatening illness is 12 hours.
Cost is one thing. But when timely and needed medical care is being adversely affected by the ILLEGAL hordes something must be done. Unfortunately, no one has the knads to take on the issue so it just keeps getting worse.
Some of us are advocating an end to that too.
I don’t support half a trillion dollars in welfare each year. Well, perhaps I do, but I want it to stop.
LLS
It would be very difficult and positively unchristian to fight this battle at the hospital level. It absolutely has to be resolved at the border level and at the state and federal govt. level.
This is why the hospital where my wife is a nurse is cutting staff. They need to ‘cut costs’, because they have a large percentage of the patient population that is here illegally, cannot pay, and that the hospital insists must be treated. Many of the illegals get treated for things my insurance would laugh at - but THEY get it.
Of course, how they will go on treating more and more patients for free by cutting staff is a bit problematic. Maybe someday there will be 700 beds and one nurse...
Not just the inner cities, but out here in the boonies of Kentucky too. People brag about their “medical card” like it’s an entitlement and use the ER like a free clinic. They get their “free” antibiotics & painkillers and take a “free” cab back home.
I have a $150 ER co-pay, and have to meet my $1000 deductible...so in my house no one goes to the ER unless they’re dying.
We’re the stupid ones for paying for insurance and co-pays. Half of our bill is for someone else who didn’t pay.
This is not new. Twenty years ago nearby hospital closed because of this so now there isn’t a hospital in the entire county. Too bad for US citizens in need of emergency care.
I’m wondering where in the constitution does is require citizens to pay unlimited medical costs for “permanent patients” in this country illegally?
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