Should Congress Build the Fence per Law?

[RKMBrown]

Interesting but I don't hardly think a large portion of illegal immigrates would qualify age wise for Medicare. Now if were referring to Medicaid you may be right.

You may have missed the point. Hospitals are forced by law to "cover" the care for the illegals. The illegals know this so they just say sorry no money it's free for me. The hospitals then have two choices. 1) go out of business or 2) pass the cost of the "free" care to the paying customers. The paying customers include the folks on medicare, cash paying customers, and private insurance carrying customers.

Talk to someone who works for a hospital in one of the high pop areas for illegals. The number of "free" customers can easily out number the number of paying customers. You want to know why it is expensive? Well one reason is because you have to foot the bill for the folks that are getting it free.

Well, I guess that would be me, since I live 30 miles from Mexico and spent my entire career in hospital administration and health insurance.

There are virtually no illegal aliens over 65 seeking coverage under Medicare. In fact, there are very few illegal aliens over 65 at all. As for free care in hospitals, I worked for the largest hospital in New Orleans before Katrina (Charity), and we collected somewhere in the nieghborjhood of 25% of our revenue from insured citizens. The other 75% was collected from federal and state grants for uninsured American citizens. New Orleans was certainly not a destination of choice for illegal aliens. The Affordable Health Care Act was passed, among other reasons, to help alieviate the problem of American citizens having no health insurance, thereby passing the hospital costs on to taxpayers at federal, state, county and city levels.

Christ, who said illegal aliens were seeking coverage under medicare? They get their care FREE AS IN ZERO COST. Medicare rates are high, in part, because medicare customers have to pay extra to cover the loss incurred by the hospitals for the "supposedly" free care. What did you think hospitals just "wrote" off the loss? Why is this myth of free hospital care so hard to understand?

 

[Vandalshandle]

"Just since the talk of amnesty heated up, illegal immigration increased dramatically. Not surprising since that is usually how it goes. The message was 'get your ass to America, quick, and take advantage.' "

Also, totally false. link, please.

"In four years, the Obama administration has deported three-quarters of the number of people that President George W. Bush’s administration did in eight. And unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama made no concerted effort to reform the US immigration system – a history that’s not lost on the president’s Latino supporters."

Deportations of illegal immigrants in 2012 reach new US record - CSMonitor.com

 

[Vandalshandle]

You may have missed the point. Hospitals are forced by law to "cover" the care for the illegals. The illegals know this so they just say sorry no money it's free for me. The hospitals then have two choices. 1) go out of business or 2) pass the cost of the "free" care to the paying customers. The paying customers include the folks on medicare, cash paying customers, and private insurance carrying customers.

Talk to someone who works for a hospital in one of the high pop areas for illegals. The number of "free" customers can easily out number the number of paying customers. You want to know why it is expensive? Well one reason is because you have to foot the bill for the folks that are getting it free.

Well, I guess that would be me, since I live 30 miles from Mexico and spent my entire career in hospital administration and health insurance.

There are virtually no illegal aliens over 65 seeking coverage under Medicare. In fact, there are very few illegal aliens over 65 at all. As for free care in hospitals, I worked for the largest hospital in New Orleans before Katrina (Charity), and we collected somewhere in the nieghborjhood of 25% of our revenue from insured citizens. The other 75% was collected from federal and state grants for uninsured American citizens. New Orleans was certainly not a destination of choice for illegal aliens. The Affordable Health Care Act was passed, among other reasons, to help alieviate the problem of American citizens having no health insurance, thereby passing the hospital costs on to taxpayers at federal, state, county and city levels.

Christ, who said illegal aliens were seeking coverage under medicare? They get their care FREE AS IN ZERO COST. Medicare rates are high, in part, because medicare customers have to pay extra to cover the loss incurred by the hospitals for the "supposedly" free care. What did you think hospitals just "wrote" off the loss? Why is this myth of free hospital care so hard to understand?

False. Link, please. Medicare is a self sustaining program that is not finacially connected in any way with free health care costs for the indigent. Free care for the indigent is covered by seprate federal and state money, as I said. That federal law, BTW was passed in 1985, on President Reagan's watch. It is called: Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)

 

[Staidhup]

Love the excuses as to why not, but build the fucking fence, rotate in and out the national guard and military for trainings exercises to intercept violators, and secure the border! Then have your immigration debate.

 

[RKMBrown]

Well, I guess that would be me, since I live 30 miles from Mexico and spent my entire career in hospital administration and health insurance.

There are virtually no illegal aliens over 65 seeking coverage under Medicare. In fact, there are very few illegal aliens over 65 at all. As for free care in hospitals, I worked for the largest hospital in New Orleans before Katrina (Charity), and we collected somewhere in the nieghborjhood of 25% of our revenue from insured citizens. The other 75% was collected from federal and state grants for uninsured American citizens. New Orleans was certainly not a destination of choice for illegal aliens. The Affordable Health Care Act was passed, among other reasons, to help alieviate the problem of American citizens having no health insurance, thereby passing the hospital costs on to taxpayers at federal, state, county and city levels.

Christ, who said illegal aliens were seeking coverage under medicare? They get their care FREE AS IN ZERO COST. Medicare rates are high, in part, because medicare customers have to pay extra to cover the loss incurred by the hospitals for the "supposedly" free care. What did you think hospitals just "wrote" off the loss? Why is this myth of free hospital care so hard to understand?

False. Link, please. Medicare is a self sustaining program that is not finacially connected in any way with free health care costs for the indigent. Free care for the indigent is covered by seprate federal and state money, as I said. That federal law, BTW was passed in 1985, on President Reagan's watch. It is called: Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)

The initial law was not as bad as what it became under the Clinton Admin, through amendments. The amendments are clearly listed in the following link, and there are many. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 55% of U.S. emergency care now goes uncompensated.[11] When medical bills go unpaid, health care providers must either shift the costs onto those who can pay or go uncompensated. In the first decade of EMTALA, such cost-shifting amounted to a hidden tax levied by providers.[12] For example, it has been estimated that this cost shifting amounted to $455 per individual or $1,186 per family in California each year.[12]

However, because of the recent influence of managed care and other cost control initiatives by insurance companies, hospitals are less able to shift costs, and end up writing off more in uncompensated care. The amount of uncompensated care delivered by nonfederal community hospitals grew from $6.1 billion in 1983 to $40.7 billion in 2004, according to a 2004 report from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured,[11] but it is unclear what percentage of this was emergency care and therefore attributable to EMTALA.

Financial pressures on hospitals in the 20 years since EMTALA's passage have caused them to consolidate and close facilities, contributing to emergency room overcrowding.[citation needed] According to the Institute of Medicine, between 1993 and 2003, emergency room visits in the U.S. grew by 26 percent, while in the same period, the number of emergency departments declined by 425.[13] Ambulances are frequently diverted from overcrowded emergency departments to other hospitals that may be farther away. In 2003, ambulances were diverted over a half a million times, not necessarily due to patients' inability to pay

"If patient's status is found to be illegal, hospitals may not discharge a patient prior to completion of care,.."
This was not in the original law. This was an amendment.

 

[RKMBrown]

How illegals get health care using medicare... interesting:
Undocumented Immigrants in the United States: U.S. Health Policy and Access to Care

 

[RKMBrown]

In September of 1996 the Clinton administration passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The bill intended to make deportations easier and focused on immigrants with criminal convictions. It also penalized employers who hired undocumented workers. That same year Congress passed the 1996 Welfare Bill which put up barriers to undocumented immigrants from receiving any public benefits and any legal immigrant from receiving food stamps. That year a large group of naturalized immigrants went out to vote and raise their voice. The following year Congress returned some but not all of the benefits to legal permanent residents.

IOW they turned the illegal immigrant welfare spigot off... then turned it back on.