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----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 2:38
PM
Subject: RE: [Sndbox] JPS to expand
immigrant care
Or they pop across the border and drop the
baby out and it's automatically a US citizen and can get welfare. This
is really getting under my skin. I rarely agree with Pat Buchanan, but I
agree with him on immigration. He says close the borders to all
immigration immediately until we assimilate all the people currently in the
US.
Charles
Mims
I feel your pain. This is one of the things that will *have* to
be worked out if we are ever going to be able to get our health care under
control. There has to an incentive for middle class family's to continue to
pay for health insurance. I believe under the new Bush worker plan, workers
will be encouraged to bring their families over too. Trust me... that will
be a big hit. The way the system is set up now, your insurance will go up
to pay for these new family's having babies.
On Sunday,
January 18, 2004, at 06:01 AM, Charles wrote:
This really, really, really
pisses me off. I just paid in December and January $2,500 worth of
medical bills that were not covered by the insurance that I pay $500 a month
for. The gvt. funded hospital made me pay my part *UP FRONT* because I
had insurance./color> Yet
these *ILLEGAL* aliens (undocumented immigrants my butt)....these
*CRIMINALS* can get not just their emergency care paid for, but regular
health care as well. Why should people like me who believe in working
and paying my own way and obeying the laws be
penalized?/color> I think it
is about time for a new civil war./color> Charles Mims/color> http://www.the-sandbox.org/smaller>/color>/fontfamily>
<image.tiff>
From:/smaller>/fontfamily>
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Charles Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 6:34
AM To: 'The Sandbox Discussion List' Subject: [Sndbox]
JPS to expand immigrant care
/smaller>/fontfamily> JPS to
expand immigrant care County will fund nonemergency treatment of
undocumented residents By Mitch Mitchell Star-Telegram Staff
Writer /smaller> <image.tiff>/smaller> /flushright>
FORT WORTH-Undocumented immigrants will get
unprecedented access to the county's charitable health care system, which
could cost Tarrant County taxpayers millions of dollars, JPS Health Network
trustees decided Thursday.
The decision's proponents maintain that
providing preventive care to indigent undocumented immigrants could save the
county money in the future and would be a more humane way of dealing with
vexing public-health problems.
But hospital administrators' concerns
are rooted in the present.
"In the short term, I'm concerned about
the capacity of the hospital to handle the new patients," said Gale Pileggi,
the network's chief financial officer. "Do we have the physical capacity and
the staff to handle this influx of patients?"
Pileggi said that an
average patient in the JPS Connection program costs the district about
$3,000 annually and that about 35,000 people are now enrolled. JPS
Connection provides financial aid to people who need nonemergency care
through the JPS Health Network.
"If enrollment goes up just 10
percent, that's more than $10 million," Pileggi said.
There is really
no way to accurately forecast the cost because too many variables are
involved, said David Cecero, the network's chief executive.
"We don't
know whether we will have one or 1,000 new patients," Cecero said.
In
fiscal 2003, more than 2,180 patients visiting John Peter Smith Hospital's
emergency room were categorized as undocumented, according to hospital
records. Hospitals are legally required to care for anyone who comes to
their emergency rooms.
But until Thursday, JPS provided little
nonemergency care to undocumented immigrants.
In fact, in 2001,
Attorney General John Cornyn issued an opinion saying it was illegal for the
state's public hospitals to subsidize nonemergency care for undocumented
immigrants. Cornyn found that federal law denies state and local benefits to
undocumented residents, unless specified by state law. Texas had no such
law, Cornyn wrote.
In the 2003 session, the Legislature enacted a law
addressing the issue. A provision allows public hospitals to provide
nonemergency care to undocumented immigrants if they use only money raised
from county taxpayers, said state Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston.
"The
intent was not to mandate," Noriega said. "The intent was to allow the local
decision-makers to serve whoever they want to serve, without fear of being
sued or other repercussions."
Most state hospital districts are
already providing preventive care to everyone because it is more
cost-effective, Noriega said.
Because Texas' tax system is based on
sales and property taxes, which undocumented immigrants pay, the income
received from them far exceeds the expense incurred to provide them health
care, Noriega said.
And the health problems that are forestalled by
preventive care far outweigh the expense of providing such care, Noriega
said.
"Disease doesn't ask whether a child is a citizen or not a
citizen," Noriega said. "We are seeing outbreaks of TB and all types of
other disease. >From a health-policy perspective, it's more
cost-effective to deal with this on the front end than the back end in your
ERs."
JPS officials interpreted the law differently. They believe
that the legislation mandated the nonemergency care and that they have to
provide financial assistance to indigent undocumented
immigrants.
"Now they are eligible to apply for reduced fees,"
Pileggi said. "They will still need to be Tarrant County residents. They
have to be financially indigent, which is 200 percent of the federal poverty
level or below, and they must have applied for everything else that they are
eligible for."
JPS officials have also said that the assumption that
preventive care will save the district money is untested.
The new
state law prohibits providing nonemergency care to people who cross the
border expressly for that purpose.
The hospital's goal is not to turn
people away, Pileggi said.
"It's clearly the mission of this
organization to take care of the indigent," Pileggi said. "The question is,
Where is the money going to come
from?"
<image.tiff>
Mitch Mitchell, (817) 390-7420 [EMAIL PROTECTED]/color> Charles
Mims/color> http://www.the-sandbox.org/smaller>/color>/fontfamily> _______________________________________________ Sndbox
mailing
list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://a8.mewebdns-a8.com/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
Tim
Harder
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