According to her, people in Central America with devastating illnesses - think cancers, heart failure, organ transplants- are told by doctors in their home country, “get to Parkland in Dallas. They will take care of you.” She says she has heard this story hundreds of times.
As a result, these people are risking their lives to transverse miles of hostle terrain - for a chance of life.
In addition, the ones that make it there, and there are a lot of them, come with massive needs. They are expensive to provide care for.
On the one hand, I feel for them. Who wouldn’t want the best care for their loved one. On the other hand, what happens when the well runs dry?
Which is one of my proposals is to basically colonize Central America and build up their infrastructure. Should have done it before, say what you will about Puerto Rico, but even they are light years ahead of most of Latin America.
Yes it costs, but we’re already paying through the nose now. Might as well make those countries desirable places to live, so they won’t feel compelled to come here.
Imho the best solution for this situation would be to allow Parkland Hospital to care for the patient.
Then—after the patient is safely back home, they should create an invoice and provide it to the U.S. State Department.
The State Department should deduct the amount of the bill from that foreign country’s next foreign aid payment and remit the funds to Parkland.
Win for the patient, win for the hospital, win for the taxpayer.
The only loser—the originating country—as it should be.
If the originating country wants to try to collect reimbursement from their citizen—that is their call...