Thread: Concerns rise over Illegal Immigrants, Uninsured

Concerns rise over Illegal Immigrants, Uninsured

Las Vegas Review-Journal (Nevada)
August 18, 2009 Tuesday
Paul Harasim

After learning that the cash-strapped University Medical Center is providing more than $20 million in dialysis services for uninsured, illegal immigrants, Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak said Monday that more efforts must be made to send foreign nationals back to their home countries for treatment.

On Sunday, the Review-Journal reported that UMC is treating 80 illegal immigrants who require costly and repeated emergency dialysis. Hospital officials said the majority of those patients are Mexican.

"The best thing we can do is work with the Mexican consulate," Sisolak said. "We need to come up with a plan that will work. ... These are people who obviously need health care, but we are stretched beyond belief."

Sisolak said UMC officials told him that the dialysis is just a small part of the problem. Obstetric and gynecological services for the uninsured are also costly issues.

U.S. citizens with end stage renal disease automatically qualify for Medicare to cover dialysis costs. Illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicare. As a result, patients who have neither insurance nor Medicare to pay for dialysis are almost exclusively illegal immigrants, a distinction that allows hospital officials to estimate costs for their care.

Sisolak, part of the commission that oversees UMC's funding, is not the only public official looking at how to deal with the steep cost of medical care for illegal immigrants.

Others are calling for congressional debate on health care for illegal immigrants and promising to find more money to fund hospitals that care for the indigent.

Hundreds of readers' comments posted on the Review-Journal's Web site often reflected a frustration with the nation's leadership. Many questioned why the country does not have better control of its borders.

Last week, Mariano Leuma Gas, the consul for Mexico in Las Vegas, said Mexico does not want its citizens to come to the United States illegally or be a burden on the American health care system.

"We need to talk more about this," he said. "We need to talk regularly about it, not just occasionally. I will do all I can to see if we can't get people from our country to leave Las Vegas and return to Mexico for their health care."

Arizona and Florida hospitals have shipped illegal immigrants back to their native countries without the patients' consent, an action patients and their families often oppose. So does Gas.

"I think we can talk to people about the right thing to do," he said. But, "I can't make them go back."

Brian Brannman, UMC's chief operating officer, said Gas already has received funding from Mexican authorities to send "a number of patients" south of the border for their health care.

A big stumbling block, Gas said, is that Mexico is in the same economic slump as the United States. He also said that in some poor Mexican states, not enough dialysis care is available for the people who live there now.

"I need to talk to officials in all the (Mexican) states," Gas said.

Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., urged federal lawmakers Monday to discuss "the impacts of illegal immigrants on the nation's health care system and how it affects the operating costs of our hospitals."

"This is one of the many areas that have not been addressed in the course of the current health care debate," Heller said. "I do not support taxpayer-funded health benefits for those who are in this country illegally."

Heller's comments, like those of most public officials discussing UMC's dialysis dilemma, were delivered in a carefully worded written statement that offered no opportunity for questions.

While legislators can say they do not favor tax-supported health benefits for illegal immigrants, federal law requires hospitals to treat any individual whose condition is deemed to be an emergency by medical professionals.

To completely eliminate medical treatment of uninsured illegal immigrants in the United States, the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, which was enacted in 1986, would have to be changed.

The act ensures public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay or citizenship. Heller's release did not discuss changing the law.

Dr. Dale Carrison, UMC's head of emergency services, said illegal immigrants with failing kidneys figured out that if they come to the emergency room "in bad enough shape," doctors will treat them.

Dialysis is almost four times more costly when done through the emergency room than through the usual doctor-guided treatment program at a dialysis center.

Brannman said the cost at UMC can run from $11,000 to $18,000 per visit for an emergency dialysis patient because of required testing and added care.

Most dialysis patients must be seen two to three times a week.

The growing cost of treating the uninsured might mean, a spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, that more funding will be needed for hospitals that help the indigent.

Jon Summers, Reid's spokesman, said the senator promises to find the necessary funding.

Asked whether the money to help care for illegal immigrants would come from taxpayers, Summers said Reid would also work for immigration reform.

UMC's financial difficulties reveal, Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said, "why we need both health care reform and immigration reform."

It is, she said, "long past time to address immigration reform in a comprehensive way in order to reduce the burden on our hospitals, schools and other public services."

To Republican state Sen. Dennis Nolan, "This is the time to find out what others are doing about situations like this."

He said he has asked the research division of the Legislative Counsel Bureau to see "how the rest of the states deal with this issue."

Sisolak also wants some research done.

He said he is asking hospital authorities for their best estimates on how much health care beyond dialysis is provided yearly to illegal immigrants.

"I need to get a better sense of the numbers," he said. "But I know one thing: We can't just put these people out on the sidewalk."

Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2908.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/En ... 90&start=2

"I need to get a better sense of the numbers," he said. "But I know one thing: We can't just put these people out on the sidewalk."

Why not? It's done to US citizens all the time!

Miguelina wrote: "Why not? It's done to US citizens all the time!"

LMAO!!!! Don't girlfriends do that to their boyfriends, also?????

Brannman said the cost at UMC can run from $11,000 to $18,000 per visit for an emergency dialysis patient because of required testing and added care.

Most dialysis patients must be seen two to three times a week.

Do the math if only 20 people get dialysis 2 times a week that could be $720,000.00!! IN ONE WEEK!!! And we all work our asses off everyday to pay for that! Go USA!!