Thread: Things are looking up for a local hospital

http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp...1&nav=HMO6ajAg

Things are looking up for a local hospital that was struggling financially a couple of years ago, largely because of patients from Mexico -- illegal immigrants or residents of nearby Naco, Mexico -- who couldn't pay for services.


Three or four years ago, Jim Dickson, chief executive of Copper Queen Community Hospital, had to cut back on employees and hours, shutter his skilled nursing facility and close the hospital's maternity ward.

Today, however, federal funds that provide partial compensation for treating illegal immigrants have finally started to come in. Even better, Dickson said, the number of non-paying patients at the hospital is declining rapidly.

"It might be the increased number of Border Patrol agents in the area or it might be the notoriety of the Minutemen (civilian border watchdogs)," he said. "But there are just not as many people crossing from Mexico.

"Whoever is doing it, they are doing a good job because it has meant financial viability for us."

He points to numbers from March and April, traditionally two of the busiest months for illegal alien patients, as evidence.

In the past, these were months when the hospital would write off as much as $30,000 in uncompensated losses. The amount has now dropped to less than $7,000, Dickson said.

Border Patrol statistics support Dickson's belief that illegal crossings are declining in the area. The agency reported 10,230 apprehensions of illegal immigrants in Cochise County in March, less than half of the 21,232 recorded in March 2005.

Nice to hear good news !

it is great news - can we not have a law that does NOT give free treatment to a non-citizen??

I mean our OWN people even don't get free treatment most of the time. Why is our system so broken that we LEGALLY let aliens get FREE treatment?/

Regarding: " illegal immigrants or residents of nearby Naco, Mexico -- who couldn't pay for services..."

One, it is illegal ALIENS, not illegal immigrants. There is NO such thing as illegal immigrants. An immigrant is a LEGAL alien who enters the U.S. LEGALLY and whose presence in the U.S. is LEGAL and who has not violated the terms of their legal presence in the U.S., so an ILLEGAL immigrant would then be an ILLEGAL "legal alien", and there is NO such thing. An ILLEGAL alien is someone who has entered this country illegally, or has become illegal because of violating the conditions of their legal presence in this country, which usually means overstaying their visa after it expires. They are either immigrants, which is LEGAL aliens, or ILLEGAL aliens, one or the other NOT both. An illegal alien is a CRIMINAL.

Entering the U.S. in violation of the law is a CRIME and so an illegal alien is a CRIMINAL by definition and their continued presence in the U.S. is a CRIME and their living and working here are CRIMES. They are definitely CRIMINALS, no doubt about it.

Two, illegal aliens many times CAN pay the bill, they just REFUSE to pay the bill. I have seen where illegal aliens many times leave unpaid bills, because these blood-sucking leeches REFUSE to pay a bill that these criminals ran up. They just disappear like the scum and vermin they are, and just start over.

A good reason for deportation of these criminals and permanently barring these parasites from this country and FORCIBLY preventing by any means necessary, these criminals from re-entering this country, even if it results in their deaths because these criminals will try by any means possible to illegally re-enter this country.

A good reason also for passing a law prohibiting any free medical care to an illegal alien unless it is a matter of life or death and further ordering that any illegal alien who applies for free medical care be reported to immigration for deportation.

Also a good reason for revoking all the unconstitutional, illegally-acquired, phony, so-called "U.S. citizenship" of illegal-alien anchor babies and deporting these illegal-alien anchor babies along with their illegal-alien criminal families and barring these criminals permanently from this country.

Any comments? Love hearing comments.