Thread: Wise advice: Don't live in this county if you're sick, needy

Sunday, Jun 3, 2007
Posted on Sun, Jun. 03, 2007
Wise advice: Don't live in this county if you're sick, needy



By BUD KENNEDY
Star-Telegram staff writer
Say you're sick with a chronic illness.
You need to see a doctor regularly.

But you're flat broke.

All I can say is, I hope you don't live in Wise County.

Wise County doesn't offer low-cost clinical care -- anywhere outside the emergency room -- unless you earn less than about $41 a week.

If you earn $42, tough luck. Pay the bill.

Sadly, that's not unusual. Wise and many other counties offer only the minimum charity required under law and the Texas Constitution.

By law, counties must reserve up to 8 cents of each tax dollar -- in Wise County, $1.4 million -- to cover limited medical care for "needy inhabitants."

County commissioners everywhere, including Tarrant County, dump some patients and their costs onto Dallas taxpayers and Parkland Memorial Hospital.

But Wise County added its own spiteful twist last week.

If you're sick and need ongoing low-cost care -- say, asthma or diabetes treatment -- bring your passport.

What? No passport?

Bring your birth certificate.

No birth certificate?

Then bring your voter card.

What's that? All you've got is a local driver's license?

I'm sorry.

In Decatur, a driver's license no longer proves that you're a Texan. Wise County commissioners voted last week to limit charity clinical care to legal U.S. residents. Like Tarrant County hospital trustees, they cut off care to illegal immigrants.

Make that illegal immigrant. There was only one in the entire Wise County indigent clinical-care system.

Just to make doubly sure, county health officials also imposed tougher identification rules for everybody.

Now, applicants for low-cost care must bring extra ID.

Even if you've paid taxes in Wise County for 10 years, your driver's license alone is no longer proof that you live there.

County officials cut back because "we were concerned that the budget was running low, and we had several illegal aliens coming in requesting services," said Charles Dillard, the county ambulance service administrator and also the boss over indigent care.

In other words, county officials feared a coming onslaught of illegal immigrants.

Sure. I bet the entire state of Aguascalientes is sitting around saying, "Hey! Let's all move up to Boyd or Cottondale and get some of that great Wise County healthcare!"

Dillard met with the county judge, a commissioner and the county attorney two weeks ago to ask about tighter rules.

Money really isn't a problem. State dollars cover 90 percent of any extra costs.

Wise County would automatically be reimbursed regardless of any patient's immigration status, said Jan Mayberry of the Texas Department of State Health Services.

"Counties aren't required by law to ask for proof of citizenship," she said. "That's not what we look at here at the state level."

By federal law, illegal immigrants automatically qualify only for emergency room care. Each county can choose to extend clinical care and set its own rules for identification.

"Those are completely local decisions," Mayberry said.

Until Friday, Wise County's local decision looked more like local delirium.

Commissioner Kevin Burns of Decatur led the vote Tuesday to cut off care for illegal immigrants. But then he told indigent care workers to turn away anyone who isn't an American citizen.

For four days, Wise County was maybe the only county in America refusing charity care even to legal immigrants.

County Judge Bill McElhaney of Bridgeport and County Attorney Greg Lowery met with Dillard Friday to straighten out the rules. Five legal immigrants had lost coverage, Dillard said.

McElhaney said commissioners should go back and set better rules for identifying county residents.

"The intent was that if they're not here legally, they shouldn't be in the program," he said. "But we need to have written instructions."

How -- Wise.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/colum ... 23771.html

You know, although I can empathize with legal citizens, if a clinic ask for proper I.D., it's better than the alternative. If we want enforcement we have to make a few concessions and and be willing to show more forms of identification. We already know illegals can get false I.D. , so how can we complain about the inconvenience if we want our laws enforced. We can't have it both ways.