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Posted on 12/11/2002 12:25:21 AM PST by sarcasm
It's feeding time for 14-year-old Antonio. His mother, Rosa, pours latte-colored formula through a catheter into Antonio's stomach. He grins and moans, his 78-pound body gnarled into a curl.
Rosa, an illegal Mexican immigrant, pays almost nothing for her son's intense medical needs — the wheelchair, catheter, formula, pump that sends painkillers directly to his spine, or physical therapy to treat his cerebral palsy. Washington state used to pay until it dropped Medicaid coverage for 29,000 illegal immigrants in October, a savings of $25 million.
Now Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center in Seattle is footing part of the bill: about $200,000 in the past two months alone in unreimbursed costs for Antonio and some 600 other children who have little or no health insurance. Hospital officials say they are willing to pay, knowing the children would suffer or die without help.
But Children's cannot sustain the free coverage if state lawmakers cut Medicaid coverage for an even larger group of low-income children. Statewide, there are about 155,000 poor and low-income children whose coverage is not mandated by the federal government, but until now has been provided solely by the generosity of the state.
Facing an estimated $2 billion budget deficit, lawmakers are taking a hard look at the ballooning costs of covering those children.
Children such as Antonio, said Children's medical director Rich Multini, are the "canary in the coal mine" for the upcoming legislative session, which starts Jan 13.
Last session "was the first attempt (by lawmakers) to throw up their hands and say, 'If we can't fix it under the budget crisis, the community is going to have to suck it up', " Multini said.
"This session, one of the reasons why kids on the front end are appealing (to cut) is they're basically healthy people. I think there's going to be serious debate."
Further Medicaid cuts targeting children, Multini said, probably would drive up costs at Children's, which in turn might face the prospect of shutting down or reducing other community health programs.
During the boom years of the last decade, the number of Washington children on Medicaid and its sister programs nearly doubled, to about 350,000 this year. The federal government pays a half of all Medicaid-care costs.
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Only six other states offer subsidized insurance to children in higher income brackets, according to the National Governors Association. For that reason, children's health insurance is particularly vulnerable to cuts this session, lawmakers say.
"We have no business getting into (health insurance for) families of four making over $40,000," said Alex Deccio, a Republican from Yakima who will be the new chairman of the Senate's Health Care Committee. "That's ridiculous. We should be saving our money to help the lower-income."
State Sen. Lisa Brown, the Spokane Democrat who helped write last year's budget, said the undocumented children were cut off from Medicaid after it was determined they could enroll in the state's basic health plan. This session won't be as easy, she said.
"In my opinion, without new revenue, it'd be hard for these health-insurance programs to escape cuts," she said.
In anticipation that Gov. Gary Locke will seek health-care cuts, state Medicaid officials have tried to prioritize health benefits. For example, they put children from higher-income families toward the bottom of the list in favor of granting benefits to the elderly and disabled.
"Certainly, health care for children is a very high priority," said Ed Penhale, a spokesman for Locke. "But in general, there are a lot of specific areas and responsibilities of government that are high priorities. When you face a revenue shortfall to the extent we face here, even the highest priorities are in competition for funding. Tough decisions will be made."
Jon Gould of the Children's Alliance, an umbrella group of 130 social-services providers, said the undocumented children were the first to be cut because "this group of people didn't have a powerful political voice.
"It was a scheme that was cooked up to save money, and lo and behold, eight months later it hasn't worked."
The Legislature reasoned that illegal immigrants could still sign up for the state's basic health-care plan, funded by tobacco and other taxes. But fewer than a half of those eligible did, and the plan's coverage is skimpy when compared to Medicaid, Gould said.
Regardless of the politics, Multini, of Children's, said his hospital must treat every child, regardless of the family's ability to pay or where the child may have been born.
"The child didn't make the choice to sneak into the country," he said. "Children's Hospital can't ask a child who presents in the ER, 'Are you here illegally?' "
In the case of Antonio, Children's provides without reimbursement a host of health care, including physical therapy. For the family, it has been a remarkable gift.
While Rosa and her husband were living in Mexico's Jalisco province, 10-month-old Antonio caught a high fever. She and the boy's father, who remains in Mexico, took him by horseback to the nearest doctor, an hour away, said Rosa, who asked that the family's last name not be used for fear of drawing the attention of immigration officials.
Unable to treat Antonio, the doctor sent the family to Guadalajara by taxi. During the two-hour ride, Antonio went into a coma and never recovered. He now has about the same mental capacity as an infant.
Fearing her son would die under Mexico's health-care system, Rosa said, she paid smugglers five years ago to bring them to Seattle, where her sister and brother-in-law live.
As she fed her son through his feeding tube, she stroked his head and called him "papi," an endearment.
"He wouldn't last very long down there (in Mexico), with the risks of infection," she said through an interpreter. "I can't imagine what kind of food I could give him. I have to think about it. One day they may kick me out of here."
I'm not clear on this. Did they save $25M in October alone, or is this a $25M savings from October to date, or $29M per year, or is this projected future savings from cutting the 29K illegals?
By the way, what's with this bunghole, Alex Deccio?:
"We have no business getting into (health insurance for) families of four making over $40,000," said Alex Deccio, a Republican from Yakima who will be the new chairman of the Senate's Health Care Committee. "That's ridiculous. We should be saving our money to help the lower-income."
This guy's a Republican? Keep confiscating from working people, then screw them - - give their money away to losers. Nice work, Alex. What a scumbag.
I don't want to be insensative, but this kid is never going to get better & this sounds like a long-term situation. How long is the Hospital going to keep paying for him?
I understand your point but my guess that is why they put this kid in the article .. notice they don't make mention of the adults getting free health care .. just the children
The usual liberal swill.
The child may not have made the choice to sneak into the country illegally, but that doesn't change the fact that the child is still in the country illegally.
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