Thread: L.A. Emergency Rooms Full of Illegal Immigrants

L.A. Emergency Rooms Full of Illegal Immigrants



LOS ANGELES — This is part three of a five-part series looking at how illegal immigration affects U.S. border security, the criminal, health care and education systems, as well as the economy. Watch the series this week on FOX News Channel.

Overburdened by the uninsured and overwhelmed by illegal immigration (search), public health care in Los Angeles is on life support.

Sixty percent of the county's uninsured patients are not U.S. citizens. More than half are here illegally. About 2 million undocumented aliens in Los Angeles County alone are crowding emergency rooms because they can't afford to see a doctor.

According to the State Association of Hospitals (search), California's public health system is "on the brink of collapse." In Los Angeles County, patients can wait four days for a hospital bed and up to two years for gallbladder surgery.

"The hospitals are closing because of the totality of the uninsured," said Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, director of the Los Angeles County Health Department (search). "If you're legally a resident in California and you're poor, you have a right to basic services."

But some critics say the taxpayers can't be the HMO (search) to the world. Last year, Los Angeles County spent $340 million to treat the uninsured; that's roughly $1,000 for every taxpayer.

"We're citizens here. Why should somebody from another country that's here illegally get anything that we can't get? I mean that's dumb, that's not right," said Don Schenck, whose son, Bill, is mentally disabled.

Though the Schencks are uninsured, and considered poor by county standards, his father had to find a way to pay for his Bill's care while thousands of others, in the country illegally, get it for free.

"It makes you feel pretty bad when you're born in that country and you're handicapped and you've got a learning disability and you can't get medical," Schenck said.

Mike Antonovich, the Los Angeles County supervisor, said the system has been "basically bankrupted."

The Department of Health has a $1.2 billion deficit. Caring for illegals is siphoning money from other services and forcing clinics, trauma centers and emergency rooms to close, he said.

"We cannot afford to have a open-door policy to encourage illegals to continue to come here and receive all the medical care, because it's too expensive," he said.

Immigrants like Yolanda Hernandez, however, argue that if there were cheap insurance plans available to her community, people would buy them.

"[Americans] have enough money to pay for insurance," she said. "They make good money and are educated. Unfortunately, we are not."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150750,00.html

GFC
could you put the link up, please?

What will the ILLEGALS do for health care if the hospitals keep closing?

STOP the freebies and they will go home!

oh, GFC, This is such a hot button topic for me.

My tax money going to people like
this! My oldest daughter is disabled. She has a very rare disease which
doesn't have a federal code. It's progressive and the doctors who are the
federal gatekeepers acknowledge that she CANNOT work and needs SSDI. Yet,
she's been told to her face that she's" white, so she can work". I told
her to get a lawyer. Yet, she's been a taxpayer since she was a teenager,
and can't get help! I have a doctor friend who works as a gatekeeper.
This doc told me recently that the law is that a Hispanic who never learns
English and is depressed, and has never worked, gets SSDI.
ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

This is from my story. This same daughter recently fell and broke her leg. Oh, she did get ER care after hours. However, the follow up with the orthopedist....he wanted $2,000 up front. Right, as if she has it! With great difficulty, we as a family, finally got her the care.


"[Americans] have enough money to pay for insurance," she said. "They make good money and are educated. Unfortunately, we are not."

Yeah, right

CURIOUS........your story is sadly so many American's story. We never questioned before. We just dig in and do what must be done for our families.

Times are changing. I believe that these marches started a snowball and people are opening their eyes to this travesty. Finally beginning to see how they were taken to the cleaners while strangers in our land get preferential treatment both medical & in academia.

I agree. And I just thought I was alone in this for a long time.
I not only fault myself and the gov't, I strongly fault the msm media for their role. We count on communication. They are lying by omission.

1989 or so, very ill, ill enough I actually went to the Contra Costa County California hospital. I think it may have been a black widow spider bite but may have been severe food poisoning. I was a hurting guy!!!!!

Staggered into the emergency room that was chock-full of Hispanics. As I sat there in agony.....and when I declare agony I mean it.... I saw possible (actually likely) illegal after illegal called in. Of course there was an interpreter present. I am so glad those suffering folks had a place to come for care.... case after case of a sniffle, a cold, a very minor ailment that you or I would never go to seek medical attention for. But, as we know, when the illegals do not have to pay for that care they use AND abuse it.

I did not have health insurance. One reason I used the county hospital was that they did not require a health insurance card and did not demand cash upfront. Of course, when the $460 bill (part of which surely helped to pay for the illegals NOT paying) arrived I made payments. I was so grateful that no interest was charged.

But, I am not angry!!!! I sleep well at night knowing our elite class has the best health insurance. They ca go to the medical facilities where the illegals do not go. I am pleased that our elites are not exposed to drug-resistant tuberculosis as us mere commoners are.

As an aside, currently, on the public television TV station a debate is raging between pro-invaders and a member of the Dustin Inman Society.

Oh how I despise those advocating the invasion!!!! Do the pro-invaders want a BILLION illegals to enter? I never hear or read of them demanding that X amount of invaders waltz in and THEN the invasion stop.

What logic can those pro-inaders have? I notice lots of emotion but facts and data are not regarded. No mention of limited resources to supply the HUGE populace we will have. No mention of impact upon the environment. No mention of the effects of the invading cultures upon the culture that created the USA.

Well said!

That chaps my posterior more than anything. An illegal parasitic cockroach who is illegally in the is country expects us to pay for her care and ours too as she claims we have more money and are better educated. She is correct on one count; we are better educated and are capable of far more than picking fruits and vegetables and procreating. Our idiot jackass in the whitehouse and jackasses in congress have relegated Americans to that of second class status. Our government (I use the term very loosely) is trying to integrate a 21st century superpower with a backwards, primitive, and savage country comprised of people who have an education and an IQ barely above the fruits and vegetables they pick. This government has given them free healthcare which we have to pay for in addition to our own (we are such rich gringos....sarcasm intended), in addition to public education and welfare assistance to support an ever increasing number of illegal alien mother's who continue to shoot out babies like pez dispensers. Illegal aliens benefit from in-state tuition denied to US citizens and military stationed in that state already struggling to send their children through college while wages in this wonderful economy have remained stagnant for 10 years and are decreasing due to outsourcing and imported labor. Illegal aliens are making a mockery of our most sacred right to vote by illegaly registering to vote, again while our government turns a blind eye. Illegal aliens and their advocates claim they want to be good citizens but violate numerous federal, state and local laws by using fraudulent documentation to obtain tax payer services and don't give a damn about American Citizens who have spent their entire lives paying into the system only to receive nothing when they retire. Illegal aliens have defamed and defiled our most sacred symbols while displaying the Mexican Buzzard and other flags and chanting "death to gringos, this country was ours before it was yours and the civil war starts now". Would these people be good citizens? They don't understand or care that with rights comes responsibilities which is the foundation of good citizenship. This administration cannot be so in the dark as to not realize the economic and social ramifications of unchecked illegal immigration. They have sold out everything that millions of veterans like myself have fought to preserve, protect, and defend; many at the cost of their lives. This administration is engaged in a war on terror with countries half a world away who they perceive to be a threat to our borders at the cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars but refuses to secure our borders despite the myriad of warnings and threats we constantly receive from terrorist groups and organizations abroad and in our own country. We are also engaged in a war on drugs with troops and other resources deployed throughtout the southern hemisphere, yet we turn a blind eye while our southern neighbor with the help of it's military perpetrates the unimpeded flow of millions of tons of drugs across our border.
This administration has dishonored and stained the Oval Office with the blood of patriots who have died in vain fighting for the rights embodied in the Constitution of which has been entrusted to the care of this administration which has so freely given to those that so flangrantly usurp it's laws and rights.

Sixty percent of the county's uninsured patients are not U.S. citizens. More than half are here illegally. About 2 million undocumented aliens in Los Angeles County alone are crowding emergency rooms because they can't afford to see a doctor.

2 million in L.A. county alone???? There MUST be more than 11 million in the U.S.! We're being sold a bill of goods. And tomorrow night traitor bush will plead for them.

31SCOUT

can you post the link to those stats here? Thanx