Posted on 09/26/2002 8:37:37 AM PDT by FITZ
Undocumented immigrants in El Paso rang up more than $30 million in unpaid medical bills in 2000 -- the second-highest amount for a border county, after San Diego -- according to a study being released today.
The U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition, a group of elected officials from 24 border counties in four states, commissioned the study to put pressure on Congress to reimburse border hospitals for providing emergency medical services to undocumented immigrants.
"We've said all along that the federal government should pay for this because it's a federal mandate for hospitals to treat everyone regardless of nationality," said Pete Duarte, Thomason Hospital's chief executive officer. "The crisis became apparent when NAFTA went into effect, and the pull of the border continues to bring more poor immigrants. I have suggested charging a 5-cent toll at the international bridges that would be earmarked for health care at the border. We have talked to everyone who will listen, but there has not been the ethical or moral will to solve this problem."
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who obtained federal money to pay for the study, is scheduled to join coalition members today in Washington to propose legislation to alleviate the financial burden on border hospitals.
Thomason Hospital had $32 million worth of uncompensated medical care in fiscal year 2001, which ended last Sept. 30. That was in addition to $49.7 million worth of charity care for patients the hospital knew upfront could not pay their bills, hospital officials said.
To help offset some of the costs, Thomason is seeking a 12.5 percent property tax increase for the new fiscal year that will begin next month. Property taxes now generate $35 million in revenue for the hospital.
Doña Ana County incurred about $5.5 million in unreimbursed medical care for treating undocumented immigrants in 2000, and Luna County incurred $563,000 for the same period.
Under federal law, hospital emergency centers cannot ask for a patient's immigration status, and they cannot refuse treatment to someone who might be in the country illegally.
MaryAnn Aelmans-Digman, CEO and president of Memorial Hospital in Las Cruces, said the hospital also admits any urgent or emergency patient because "we don't want them to not come and get care."
Memorial Hospital's total uncompensated medical-care bill for 2001 was $32.8 million, which included $11.4 million for charity care.
But "we couldn't tell how much of that is attributable to illegal immigrants," Aelmans-Digman said.
The study by MPT of America, a consulting firm in Florida hired by the coalition, is thought to be the first of its kind in its attempt to quantify the cost of treating undocumented immigrants at border hospitals. It was limited to emergency room services, which are the most commonly sought by undocumented immigrants.
The researchers said reliable data are impossible to obtain because a 1996 federal law prohibits hospitals from asking patients about their immigration status. That law also requires hospitals to treat such patients.
To come up with their cost estimate, researchers used a complicated statistical model, conducted interviews with hospital administrators and surveyed 77 hospitals and 82 emergency medical transportation providers in the four states along the Mexican border.
It found that the cost of treating undocumented immigrants in emergency rooms totaled about $190 million in 2000, and was especially high in El Paso, San Diego and Pima County, Ariz. The amount does not include the cost of ambulance services, emergency room physician fees or follow-up care. Including them would have pushed the cost to more than $300 million, according to the study.
U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, said "the study backs up what my colleagues from other border districts and I have been saying for years with hard data, and will help us all as we continue to address the unique health-care problems we face along the U.S.-Mexican border at a federal level."
The study found that undocumented immigrants arrive at emergency rooms by ambulance, they walk in or they are brought by the Border Patrol, which is part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
"Hospital officials were especially frustrated with the INS," the study said. "They told researchers that Border Patrol agents often don't take illegal immigrants into custody to avoid paying for their emergency medical care."
No one at El Paso's Border Patrol office was available for comment Wednesday, and questions were referred to officials in Washington -- who also were unavailable.
The study recommended that Congress set aside money for the INS to cover the costs of emergency medical services stemming from search-and-rescue and law-enforcement activities.
It also recommended finding a way to identify and track individuals' immigration statuses through such methods as the lack of a Social Security number. This would enable an agency such as the INS or Border Patrol to submit federal reimbursement requests.
Robin Herskowitz, who directed the study, said border hospitals, like hospitals elsewhere, are under intense financial pressure due to the growing number of uninsured patients and severe cutbacks in state Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals. But, she said, most hospitals don't have to cope with a high volume of undocumented immigrants.
"By sheer accident of their geography, border hospitals bear a disproportionate share of the cost of treating undocumented immigrants," Herskowitz said.
The study estimates that emergency room services provided to such immigrants represent about 23 percent of all "uncompensated care" at border hospitals. The bulk of uncollected fees come from other patients who can't or won't pay their bills.
Herskowitz said the growing pile of unpaid bills by undocumented immigrants at some hospitals has forced administrators to reduce staff, increase rates and cut back services.
"What people need to think about is that the next time you are driving through a border state and have a medical emergency, the local emergency room could be closed because the hospital cannot afford to keep it open," she said.
Uh, isn't this article about illegal aliens? Or as the neocons say, undocumented? Or is this talk about Mexican American's just more distraction and diversion from the actual article? Or are you actually referring to the illegal aliens that vote and have subverted our elections?
They don't all vote democrat but the Hispanic Americans who are from families who came in the early 1900's or those descended from the Spaniards who came to what is now the SW USA are the more conservative types, the ones coming from Mexico in the past few years tend not to have those same conservative values. Some of the professionals who are coming are conservative but the majority coming for the free stuff aren't at all conservative.
We should wipe out welfare but that's getting more and more difficult when the types of people in Mexico who think welfare sounds like a good idea and know they can get it here but not there decide to move on over ---and vote.
One reason San Diego and El Paso and other border cities are in an extreme crisis situation with health care ---is that this isn't even just the typical illegal immigrants. Many of the ones coming over never worked a day in their life here, they can't be said to have benefitted our economy in any way at all --not even with their cheap labor. They come up from all areas of Mexico for the sole purpose of getting to a US border hospital for all kinds of health care they will never be expected to pay for. It's a problem that's growing worse extremely fast because they've all caught on how easy it is to do and also most good physicians have left Mexico. If I lived over there I wouldn't like to go to most doctors there either.
Same thing with the schools along the border. They're all in need of federal money bailouts.
Before you get real agitated about "racism" and whatever ---go back and check out the names of the authors of this article. It has nothing to do with ethnicity or race, it's a financial crisis that is destroying the border region.
Uh, read the post to which I responded.
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