Thread: Texas: County's cost for illegal immigrants' care soars

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 77695.html

June 17, 2006, 2:49AM

County's cost for illegal immigrants' care soars
Radack: Burden of federal policy 'shouldn't fall on the local taxpayer'
By BILL MURPHY


The Harris County Hospital District's unreimbursed costs of caring for illegal immigrants approached $100 million last year, a 77 percent increase in three years.

"The costs are increasing because the population of undocumented immigrants is increasing and the cost of health care is rising," said hospital district spokesman Bryan McLeod.

The unreimbursed costs rose from $55 million in 2002 to $97 million in 2005, the hospital district said in a report released Friday. Last year's figure represented 13 percent of the district's $760 million operating budget.

The district treats about 300,000 patients annually, but lacks enough funds and facilities to care for all of the county's uninsured and underinsured residents, estimated to number between 800,000 and 1.2 million, McLeod said.

Commissioner Steve Radack, who requested the report on the district's costs of treating undocumented immigrants, said county residents are shouldering a burden created by the federal government.

The federal government doesn't prevent illegal immigration, but hardly reimburses local counties where the immigrants most frequently settle and use public health care facilities, he said.

"The federal government allows people to come here illegally," Radack said. "Because of that the cost shouldn't fall on the local taxpayer."

The district treated more than 57,000 illegal immigrants last year, at a cost of $128 million. The federal and state governments reimbursed about $28 million, and the patients themselves paid about $3 million. Over the past 11 years, the district has paid about $607 million in unreimbursed costs for treating undocumented immigrants.

The district does not directly ask patients if they are in the country legally, but infers their status from other information gleaned during patient screenings, officials said.

Radack said it would be inhumane for the hospital district to stop providing treatment to illegal immigrants.

And untreated infectious illnesses among immigrants might spread to the broader population, he said.

"You would create a tremendous health crisis," he said.

Under federal law, emergency rooms are required to treat anyone who shows up and needs immediate care.

Local emergency rooms often are backed up with patients, including many without health insurance who come to the emergency room as a last resort when they need nonemergency care.

Regional health care officials have been strategizing for years on how to move those not needing urgent care to other settings so emergency rooms can treat true emergencies.

McLeod said emergency rooms would become even more overburdened if the district stopped treating illegal immigrants in district clinics and hospitals, and they all started showing up at emergency rooms for nonemergency care.

bill.murphy@chron.com

http://www.bloghouston.net/item/3539

Costs skyrocket for illegal immigrant health care
Yesterday KTRH-740 reported that Harris County taxpayers paid $97 million in health care costs for illegal immigrants last year:

KTRH has learned the Harris County Hospital District is shelling out millions of dollars every year to treat people who are here in this country illegally.

When you subtract what patients paid for hospital district services, and money from federal grants and other sources, $97.3 million dollars is what the local property taxpayer subsidized the district budget for undocumented immigrant care in 2005. That's 14 percent of the entire hospital system's operating budget.

Today the Chronicle has more:

Commissioner Steve Radack, who requested the report on the district's costs of treating undocumented immigrants, said county residents are shouldering a burden created by the federal government.

The federal government doesn't prevent illegal immigration, but hardly reimburses local counties where the immigrants most frequently settle and use public health care facilities, he said.

"The federal government allows people to come here illegally," Radack said. "Because of that the cost shouldn't fall on the local taxpayer."

The district treated more than 57,000 illegal immigrants last year, at a cost of $128 million. The federal and state governments reimbursed about $28 million, and the patients themselves paid about $3 million. Over the past 11 years, the district has paid about $607 million in unreimbursed costs for treating undocumented immigrants.

The district does not directly ask patients if they are in the country legally, but infers their status from other information gleaned during patient screenings, officials said.

And this is only for the county hospitals. Chris Baker was discussing this yesterday and one of his callers identified herself as an employee of a private, fourteen-hospital group here in the Houston area. She said they routinely write off anywhere from 40 to 60 surgeries each week, because the patients are here illegally and are unable to pay. She said the paperwork will often have Social Security numbers such as 111-11-1111, or 999-99-9999, and bogus addresses, but since hospitals are prohibited from turning anyone away, there is nothing they can do about it.

http://ktrh.com/pages/houstonnews.html? ... cle=392502

Big Bucks to Take Care of Illegal Immigrants

Harris County taxpayers are spending nearly $100 million a year on health care for undocumented immigrants.
Friday, June 16, 2006

KTRH has learned the Harris County Hospital District is shelling out millions of dollars every year to treat people who are here in this country illegally.

When you subtract what patients paid for hospital district services, and money from federal grants and other sources, $97.3 million dollars is what the local property taxpayer subsidized the district budget for undocumented immigrant care in 2005. That's 14 percent of the entire hospital system's operating budget.

The Hospital District's Brian McCloud tells KTRH, "We've been treating this patient population for a long time, this is nothing new."

However, the report also notes that health care for undocumented immigrants is eating up more of the budget now. Four years ago, the district paid about $55 million compared to the $97 million in 2005 for those services.

And why are we doing this" shelling out millions of dollars to take care of illegal aliens? We need to stop the insanity folks. We need to take up the slogan the kids do for drugs, we need to,

JUST SAY NO!