Illegal Immigrants not a burden to health care?

How do you think we have all of these non-citizens with children that are citizens? You claim it is an exaggeration but the news is filled with sob stories about such people.



If we don't let them into the country so easy then we wouldn't have the problem in the first place.

Most non-citizen mothers are women who have been here for years. These are the people who are live and work here and are parts of our economy and our communities.

The story that mothers from a particular town call ambulances to rush over the border as they are in labor is almost certainly an exaggeration.

"For every illegal breaking the law there's an American breaking the law"
What kind of logic is that?
The fact that a car thief stole your car is no reason for cruelty either?
Look, the federal gov't isn't doing a damn thing to stop this invasion, the states are footing the bills, it's killing Americans, is that ok? An illegal takes up a hospital bed while some sick American is on the street because there isn't room for him/her in that hospital?
& then too, as I said before, this is also a national security issue.
As for providing you proof, I can't provide you proof, you take my word for it or you don't, i could give two hoots.

I agree completely.

My point is that we need to treat the people here now, who are living and working and raising families, with compassion.

For those who are really concerned about how illegal immigrants impacts our health care system, you need to study the impact the Walmarts, many small businesses, and fast food restaurants impacts our health care system.

Do you have any idea how many are crossing every day? Do you have a clue as to how they destroy property & terrorize ranchers? What about the national security issue? you ok with that too, you ready for a dirty bomb to be dropped on your comminity? You willing to give up YOUR well being for illegal immigrants? How about the illegal drugs that are crossing by the truck load?
I think the problem with you is that you truly do not understand the seriousness of this.

Uh, could you explain that.

That is the explanation.

Then humor me please, explain what you're saying.

Humor yourself by being your own gopher.

I don't recall blaming "all of our problems" on illegal aliens. I'm being pretty specific. I don't recall saying that there was any lack of compassion on my part either, but that didn't stop you from labeling me did it?

How does an illegal alien become insured, by the way?

If you lived in a border state, you might have an entirely different perspective on things as this probably hasn't made a very big impact on life in Boston. Try having a loved one have a heart attack and all the ERs are closed nearby so they DIE on the way to the hospital.

I appreciate the rude remark about who is and isn't smart, thank you for enlightening me.

I made a HUGE mistake joining this board. Does everyone here behave in this manner?

That wasn't my experience and I'm not alone.

Hmm, that about tells it all on your part, just as I suspected, you don't know what you're talking about.

"Does everyone here behave in this manner"
Only the very ignorant ones.

Isn't it something like 95% of murder warrants in LA for illegal immigrants? 2/3 of all births in LA are born to Mexican illegals?
That has got to be a drain. Oh, I also heard that 75% of the most wanted list in LA is for illegal aliens.

LB, For your perusal.

Americans Highly Aware Emergency Departments Are Overcrowded, Underfunded; Lack Awareness of Personal Impact
San Francisco, CA-Knowing emergency departments are overcrowded and underfunded, one in two American voters (55 percent) say government should increase funding for hospital emergency departments, according to the results of a survey released today here at the American College of Emergency Physicians' (ACEP) annual meeting.

As a powerful testament to the importance of maintaining access to emergency medical care, the opinion poll of 800 American voters found they are highly aware of the challenges facing emergency departments today.

One in two (53 percent) Americans believe emergency departments are facing a crisis of overcrowding and that many patients have to wait in the emergency department from four to 12 hours before a hospital bed becomes available when they are admitted.

Half of all respondents (50 percent) believe emergency departments are facing financial shortfalls and may be forced to close in some areas of the country because almost half of the care they provide to patients is never reimbursed.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans are aware that emergency departments often receive no reimbursement for the care they provide to millions of people who are either uninsured or illegal immigrants.

Almost seven in 10 Americans (68 percent) say emergency departments are facing a shortage of doctors due to the high cost of medical liability insurance.

Awareness of these challenges may be strongest in urban areas where the study found even more support for increased funding for emergency medical care.

Overall, 61 percent of urban residents believe emergency departments need additional funding, compared to 53 percent of suburban residents, and 51 percent of those in rural areas.

In looking at funding support by region of the country, 6 out of 10 respondents (62 percent) in the Outer South* express the strongest support for increasing emergency department funding, followed closely by voters in the Pacific region (60 percent).

While support varies slightly by location, the majority of Americans say funding should be increased for all first responders, including police departments, fire departments and emergency departments. In fact, more than one-third (37 percent) of respondents felt government funding should be increased for all three community services. However, when this group was asked to prioritize, they say emergency departments should top the list.

cicerone imposter,

Good article. I don't know many that would disagree if they had a hospital near them close down. It can be terrifying.

And here.

U.S. Emergency Medicine on the Critical List
06.14.06, 12:00 AM ET

WEDNESDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. emergency medical system is in critical condition and on life support -- overburdened, under-funded, and highly fragmented, according to three new reports released Wednesday by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). According to the reports, ambulances are being turned away from emergency departments and patients can wait hours or even days for a hospital bed. And, as it stands, the system is currently unprepared to handle overloads of patients from disasters such as hurricanes, bombings, or disease outbreaks, the authors contended.

"These reports reinforce something we have known for a long time," said one expert, Dr. Rick Blum, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians. "The challenges facing emergency medicine are reimbursement, overcrowding, ambulance diversion and lack of on-call specialists."

Gail Warden, chairman of the IOM's Hospital-Based Emergency Care Committee that did the reports, noted that "there has not been an in-depth study of emergency medicine done in 40 years."

His team's report finds the U.S. system in a precarious state. "Emergency rooms, in most cases, are overcrowded with long waits for patients to be admitted," Warden said. "Ambulances are frequently diverted to another hospital, because the primary one is overflowing. There is a lack of specialists to provide care in many emergency rooms. The transport of ambulances to emergency medical services is often fragmented, disorganized and inconsistent. In many cases, pediatric care falls short because emergency rooms are not prepared to care for children in the way that they should be."

To help solve these problems, Congress needs to earmark money to insure that emergency departments, trauma centers and medical first responders are fully equipped and ready to deliver fast and appropriate care, the IOM reports concluded.

They are calling for action to reduce crowding in emergency rooms, boost the number of specialists involved in emergency care, and get all emergency medical services to work as a team, steering patients to the most appropriate facilities.

The reports in the The Future of Emergency Care series include: Emergency Care Services at the Crossroads, Emergency Care for Children: Growing Pains and Hospital-Based Emergency Care: At the Breaking Point.

Why the crisis? The IOM, which is part of the National Academies, reported that:

Insufficient funding and uncompensated care have taken a toll on the capacity of the emergency medical system. Significant cuts in federal funds for emergency medical response in the early 1980s left first-responder services to develop haphazardly across the country. Many ambulance services use out-of-date communications equipment that hinders their ability to coordinate with hospitals and other first-responders in their areas.
In 2003, emergency departments saw nearly 114 million patients -- a 26 percent increase over the previous decade -- but during the same 10 years the United States lost 703 hospitals and 425 emergency departments, one report noted.
A growing number of uninsured Americans are looking to emergency departments as their health care "safety net," and much of this care is never paid for.
Emergency departments are also playing key roles in disaster response, but in 2002 and 2003, emergency medical services received just 4 percent of the $3.38 billion doled out for emergency preparedness by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The reports urges Congress to allocate $50 million to reimburse hospitals for uncompensated emergency and trauma care and to increase funding to provide hospitals with resources needed to handle disaster situations.

That proposal will make up only about a third of the actual costs, noted Warden, who is president emeritus of the Henry Ford Health Care System, in Detroit.

"The request is basically to get it on the record to get some dialogue going, recognizing that it might take a few years to get some of these things addressed. But at the same time we had to make the point that the resources going into emergency medicine fall way short of what is needed," he said.

The reports also urged federal legislators to earmark $88 million over five years for projects designed to test ways to promote greater coordination and regionalization of emergency care; and another $37.5 million each year for the next five years to the Emergency Medical Services for Children Program, to address shortfalls in pediatric emergency care.

Blum said the reports highlight what those in emergency medicine have long known.

"As a nation, we have to figure out how we are going to care for 47 million uninsured people," Blum said. "Emergency departments really have to bear a disproportionate part in caring for these folks and it has resulted in the infrastructure of emergency care to be extremely limited."

"The current climate, where 50 percent of emergency care is uncompensated, is not financially viable," Blum said. "So, while the number of emergency visits has gone up dramatically over the past 10 years, the actual of emergency departments has declined -- that's not a sustainable trend."

For his part, Warden believes all the players in emergency medicine must come together to try to solve these issues. Many of the problems cited in the IOM reports have been endemic in emergency medicine for a long time, he said, but increased volume of patients has tipped the scale and caused the current crisis.

"There has been no concerted effort to really look at these issues and try to figure out what kinds of strategies are necessary to look at these problems in depth, and this is what we have done in these studies," Warden said.

The crisis in emergency medicine crisis is symptomatic of broader stresses in the U.S. health care system, Blum added.

"For emergency medicine, we are just trying to figure out how to get through the next day in our crowed emergency departments," he said. "We are not focused on the big picture of health care reform. We are focused on the day-to-day realities of trying to care for people with declining resources and having to care for more and more patients."

More information

For more on efforts to improve U.S. emergency care, head to the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Uncompensated care, they say.

That is the same problem with the hospitals mentioned here. Flood of illegal immigrants threatens to drown hospitals

Borrowed from the Los Angeles Times
June 21, 2004

BISBEE, Ariz. ?- Besieged by illegal immigrants who jam its emergency room, then disappear without paying , tiny Copper Queen Community Hospital is growing desperate.

The 13-bed private facility lost $800,000 caring for migrants last year and $500,000 the year before. At this rate, hospital administrator Jim Dickson predicts he'll shut down in three years, leaving the town of Bisbee without a hospital.

"The more business I do, the more money I lose," he said.

It's the same story at other border hospitals struggling to cope with record numbers of illegal immigrants sweeping through Arizona.

Carondelet Holy Cross Hospital in Nogales lost $500,000 last year. Tucson Medical Center closed its trauma center because of uncompensated care. And University Medical Center in Tucson loses close to $1 million a month in unpaid care.

The century-old Copper Queen sits astride the "Naco corridor," the busiest gateway for illegal immigrants in the nation. Border agents have made 154,000 arrests here this year.

Every day hundreds of immigrants set off from Naco, Mexico, six miles from Bisbee, and head north through this ragged edge of Arizona.

If they get hurt in the desert or while being smuggled in vans and trucks, they usually wind up at Copper Queen. The facility also takes emergency transfers from Naco, which has no hospital.

"The numbers are incredible ," said Stephen Lindstrom , medical director at Copper Queen. "They are constantly bringing in dehydrated and injured Mexicans , but I don't think we've ever got a dollar."

A study last year by the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition examined health-care costs in 28 border counties in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California . It found they had lost $200 million treating illegal immigrants that year.

Statewide, Arizona is losing $150 million annually caring for undocumented immigrants, health officials said.

"If there is a rollover accident near the border and the nearest hospital is in Bisbee, the economic consequences can be catastrophic," said John Rivers, president of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association. "Securing the border is a federal responsibility and at some point they have to step up and provide a safety net for these hospitals giving care."

Congress recently set aside $1 billion to reimburse states for treating illegal immigrants. Arizona will get $40 million annually over four years starting in 2005, about one-quarter of what it actually spends.

Dickson said without substantive immigration reform the money would only be a stopgap.

Until then, he's buying time for Copper Queen by improving facilities across the border. He has donated a new bed and suction equipment to Naco and is trying to give the city an ambulance.

Dickson hopes Naco will use the ambulance to take patients to hospitals in Agua Prieta, Mexico ?- 30 miles away ?- rather than Bisbee. Such gifts can backfire.

An ambulance given to a hospital in Nogales, Mexico, ended up being used by drug dealers to smuggle marijuana into Arizona.