EDITORIAL
Our Opinion: Feds' funds pullout will decimate ER care in Ariz
Tucson Citizen
letters@tucsoncitizen.com

Southern Arizona hospitals long have been overwhelmed by the costs of treating illegal immigrants, but at least the federal government provided a little reimbursement.

However, come Oct. 1, it will eliminate even that meager payback - i.e. $13 million given to Tucson-area hospitals that have spent $66 million in illegal-immigrant care since 2005.

The decision to eradicate hospital paybacks comes from the same government that has failed to reform immigration policy - a failure that has cost Arizona dearly in things such as law enforcement, courts and hospitals.

This decision is grossly unfair to border states Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas, which have been slammed hard by immigration.
But Arizona is in the worst shape of all, because mid-1990s border crackdowns in Texas and California started the funneling of immigrants, coyotes and drug smugglers to our border.

Our hospitals have struggled ever since. We now have only one Level One trauma unit, at University Medical Center.

Tucson Medical Center closed its top-level trauma unit in 2003 for budgetary reasons - including uncompensated care.

While the end of federal reimbursements undoubtedly will hurt University and Tucson medical centers, and St. Mary's and St. Joseph's hospitals, it could be the death knell for small border hospitals such as Copper Queen Community in Bisbee (which closed its maternity ward in 2000) and Carondelet Holy Cross in Nogales.

Hospitals, of course, have no choice. They are required by law and by conscience to treat anyone who needs it, no matter their nationality or bankbook bottom line.

Who pays the hospitals when the patients don't? We do, through higher health insurance and hospital bills.

The Mexican government should pay when its citizens are hurt and treated here. But it won't.

Our own Border Patrol won't even take responsibility for patients it brings to the hospitals - not until they're medically released, if then.

From every angle, our hospitals are exploited: by the federal government and its border agents, by the home countries of the patients and, of course, by the nonpaying patients themselves.

If the U.S. government had put a sorely needed guest worker program in place, Arizona wouldn't have jampacked vans and SUVs bringing immigrants into our state, often racing at high speeds, flipping and sending multiple people to hospitals.

The powers that be in Washington, D.C., have ignored and neglected this problem for far too long.

Unchecked immigration and unreimbursed care are endangering us and our health care network.

This nonsense must be addressed. Until it is, hospitals must be reimbursed for what is a federal failure.

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/opinion/95181.php