Originally Posted By TomSawyer No one is forced to pay for emergency medical care. The courts decided that hospitals couldn't refuse to treat people with emergency medical conditions based on the ability to pay. For non-emergency procedures, it is up to the hospitals or clinics whether or not they treat the patient based on ability to pay. One loophole is childbirth, when someone can show up at the emergency room in labor. No hospital is going to throw someone on the street who is in labor, even though it isn't an emergency. How do you get them to pay? I don't know. Do we really want our hospitals to throw a mother in labor back out onto the streets? I think that's immoral, but hospitals just can't afford to keep treating people at no charge. That's the problem we're in right now. WIth single payer, every citizen would be covered and hospitals wouldn't have to jack up every one else's fees to pay for the people who don't have insurance but who have emergency medical needs or critical care needs. And it wouldn't be quite so critical to get payment for those emergency services that are required for people who aren't on the single payer plan.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >Who paying for the illegals now?< If the illegals don't pay, no one. Hospitals write it off as a loss or report it as charity care. The taxpayers don't cover it, unless the care is provided by a public hospital that is funded through local tax dollars.
Originally Posted By Disneyman55 So under this system you proposed, would illegal immigrants be covered?
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <If the illegals don't pay, no one. Hospitals write it off as a loss or report it as charity care. The taxpayers don't cover it, unless the care is provided by a public hospital that is funded through local tax dollars.> If hospitals write it off, then they are paying for most of it, and the taxpayers are paying the rest.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>If the illegals don't pay, no one. Hospitals write it off as a loss or report it as charity care. The taxpayers don't cover it, unless the care is provided by a public hospital that is funded through local tax dollars.<< My understanding is that these costs are eventually passed on to those who do pay. Which is one of many reasons the cost of healthcare in this country is rising so quickly.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer The Taxpayers pay a LOT of the medical services that illegal aliens receive at Hospitals! <a href="http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/health_care.htm" target="_blank">http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/ health_care.htm</a> >>But take a hypothetical “Gloria,†a twenty-year old Los Angeles resident who is seven months pregnant? Like Diaz, Gloria is uninsured, unemployed and illegally in the U.S. Medi-Cal will cover Gloria’s prenatal care and child delivery costs. If Gloria doesn’t speak English, the hospital must, by law, provide her with a Spanish-speaking translator. Gloria’s newborn child will also get car seats and diapers under her Medi-Cal coverage. In the event of post-partum complications, California will absorb all of the costs. U.S. taxpayers have spent hundred of millions on patients like Diaz and Gloria. As a consequence, the states are facing a crisis of unparalleled magnitude. As Los Angeles Times columnist Ronald Brownstein wrote in his December 30 column “Health-Care Storm Brewing in California Threatens to Swamp U.S.â€, “the impending Medicaid disaster is not a problem the states can handle alone; their budget shortfalls are too big.†<< <a href="http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2005/05/payments_to_hel.php" target="_blank">http://www.amren.com/mtnews/ar chives/2005/05/payments_to_hel.php</a> >>The Bush administration announced on Monday that it would start paying hospitals and doctors for providing emergency care to illegal immigrants. The money, totaling $1 billion, will be available for services provided from Tuesday through September 2008. Congress provided the money as part of the 2003 law that expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs, but the new payments have nothing to do with the Medicare program. Members of Congress from border states, like Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, had sought the money. They said the treatment of illegal immigrants imposed a huge financial burden on many hospitals, which are required to provide emergency care to patients who need it, regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay.<<
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>So under this system you proposed, would illegal immigrants be covered?<< I wouldn't want to see emergency medical services denied to anyone. Who would pay for it? How about the border patrol or the INS?
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>My understanding is that these costs are eventually passed on to those who do pay. Which is one of many reasons the cost of healthcare in this country is rising so quickly.<< The number of illegal aliens who seek medical attention is miniscule compared to the number of uninsured who seek medical attention. Costs are going up, in part, because there are so many uninsured Americans who need urgent medical care. You can't turn them away at the door, and if they don't have the money to pay there's not a lot you can do to get that money. So hospitals have to increase their charges for the patients who are insured to cover those who aren't. If every citizen had insurance, then hospitals wouldn't have to pad everyone's bills to pay for the uninsured.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>The Bush administration announced on Monday that it would start paying hospitals and doctors for providing emergency care to illegal immigrants.<< Since it is a federal law that tells hospitals that they have to treat emergency cases, it makes sense for the federal government to pay for that care. I don't really know what the answer is to this, though. I can't imagine turning away someone with a life-threatening injury or illness just because they don't have the money to pay for care. That seems inhuman, and it's definitely not the action of a society that calls itself a Christian nation.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Here is an very interesting report from the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. <a href="http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1/cosman.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1 /cosman.pdf</a> Let me share an article based on the report... <a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43275" target="_blank">http://www.worldnetdaily.com/n ews/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43275</a> >>"The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences," writes Madeleine Pelner Cosman, author of the report. "We judge reality primarily by what we see. But what we do not see can be more dangerous, more expensive, and more deadly than what is seen." According to her study, 84 California hospitals are closing their doors as a direct result of the rising number of illegal aliens and their non-reimbursed tax on the system. "Anchor babies," the author writes, "born to illegal aliens instantly qualify as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in Medicaid costs and stipends under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income." In addition, the report says, "many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease." While politicians often mention there are 43 million without health insurance in this country, the report estimates that at least 25 percent of those are illegal immigrants. The figure could be as high as 50 percent. << <a href="http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersffec" target="_blank">http://www.fairus.org/site/Pag eServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersffec</a> >>Health care. Uncompensated medical outlays for health care provided to the state's illegal alien population amount to about $1.4 billion a year. <<
Originally Posted By Disneyman55 Tom, your idealistic views come from someone who lives nowhere near the southern border of this country. You might not see a major issue in your part of the country, but in SoCal, Arizona or Texas this is an expensive and valid concern. Personally, on a spiritual basis, I agree with you. It would be un-Christian to turn anyone away. However, it also un-Christian to knowingly take advantage of the "System". And, this is not a church issue in the first place. This is a political issue with monetary ramifications. Are you suggesting that we pay for any and all who step across the hospital threshhold. Not even the Canadians do that. Matter of fact you have to have an ID provided by Canada to get thier "vaunted" medical service.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>Tom, your idealistic views come from someone who lives nowhere near the southern border of this country.<< No, they come from someone who is trying to apply my faith in the world rather than adjusting my faith based on what I see in the world. It is wrong to deny someone emergency medical attention just because you might not get paid. Letting someone die because they don't have enough money or because they are on the wrong side of a border is reprehensible. Should the victim avoid putting themselves in that position to begin with? Of course. But what moral choice do you have if they show up at an emergency room having a heart attack or bleeding out from on open wound? I'm not going to stand in front of St. Peter and say, "Yeah, sorry about that. He didn't have any money so we let him die on the sidewalk. My bad." I think we should ask that one question first: Do we treat those with emergency medical needs even if they can't pay for it? Once you have the answer to that, then we can start trying to figure out where that money should come from. In California, the state government decided to pick up the tab so that hospitals would not be burdened with the "unfunded mandate" of requiring emergency medical treatment. What's the best choice, though?
Originally Posted By Darkbeer What is Emergency Care???? A big problem here in California is that many families that are illegal, or without insurance use it to get sore throats taken care of, and other minor aliments... <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0" target="_blank">http://www.foxnews.com/story/0</a>,2933,150750,00.html >>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.<< <a href="http://www.newswithviews.com/Cosman/madeleine.htm" target="_blank">http://www.newswithviews.com/C osman/madeleine.htm</a> >>EMTALA requires each Emergency Room to treat anyone who enters with an “emergency†associated with cough, headache, hangnail, cardiac arrest, herniated lumbar disc, drug addiction, alcohol overdose, gunshot injury, automobile trauma, HIV-positive infection, mental problem, or personality disorder. Definition of emergency is flexible and vague enough to include almost any condition as requiring mandatory care. Any patient coming to a hospital emergency room requesting emergency care must be screened and treated until stabilized for discharge or stabilized for transfer whether or not insured, whether or not “documented,†and whether or not able to pay. <<
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>A big problem here in California is that many families that are illegal, or without insurance use it to get sore throats taken care of, and other minor aliments...<< Hence the problem with our current health care system - because so many working poor Americans are without insurance, they only way they can get treated is by going to the emergency room. If we had a single payer health system, they could be treated for much less than they are now. I don't think blocking illegal aliens from medical treatment is moral - I think they should be blocked at the border, not in the waiting room. If they are here, I don't see how we can let them die.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Hence the problem with our current health care system - because so many working poor Americans are without insurance, they only way they can get treated is by going to the emergency room. If we had a single payer health system, they could be treated for much less than they are now.> Exactly. We see this in NY too. It's nuts that a working poor person without insurance can't afford to go see a regular doctor, so they use the only method available to them; the emergency room. If they go before they're really sick, they're tying up the ER and forcing it to function in a way it wasn't meant to. If they wait until they're really sick, their treatment is far more expensive than if they had been able to receive preventative care. A single payer system which paid the far lesser charge of that person seeking preventative care at the beginning of an illness makes a lot more sense on many levels.
Originally Posted By patrickegan “I don't think blocking illegal aliens from medical treatment is moral –“ I don’t either, deport them and they can get health care in there own country. Mexico is a Christian nation, heck probably more Christian then the US. What they do is you can go to the hospital but your family nurses you and your family has to go out and buy the medicine. Also like others have stated most of the ailments the illegal’s have are not life threatening. I personally spent 7 hours in the waiting room one night with a collapsed lung and there was very little representation from the first world.
Originally Posted By planodisney As an empleyer her in texas or 16 hispanics, mostly mexicans, but a couple from El salvador, these guys do get medical treatment. They can go to Parkland hospital, I think there are a couple other public hospitals also, get medical treatment, and the usually dont pay a dime. They can apply for insurance through the hospital, dont ask me to explain that, because i am not sure how it works, but the hospitals also just right much of this off. Twice I have taken employess to the Emergency rooms for minor injuries, and they walked out both times without ever asking for insurance or a dime. I was there, but they didnt even ask for my companies insurance or anything, which I have. I still feel bad that i didnt speak up and say, Hey, they are under my company insurance. i will next time. Anyway, there have been 3 babys born amongst my crew in the last 2 years, and they have not payed a dime. So, at least here in Texas, they do get taken care of.
