House vote may stop hospital funds given for treating illegal entrants

GREEN VALLEY -- The House of Representatives plans to vote Tuesday to require emergency rooms to report the names of illegal immigrants they treat or lose federal funds.

A spokesperson for sponsor U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said it would be one way for the country to avoid "becoming an HMO for the rest of the world."

Federal law requires hospitals to treat all emergency room patients, whether they can afford to pay or not.

Border hospitals are especially hard hit, because many of their emergency patients are illegal aliens who can't pay.

Rohrabacher's spokesperson Aaron Lewis in a telephone interview from Washington Thursday said "no other country in the world" would do such a thing as treating illegals as the United States does.

"It violates all common sense," he said. "It takes away money needed for citizens' needs."

Lewis said emergency rooms already report suspected criminal behavior when they treat gunshot wounds or abuse, so why not illegals.

The bill is HR 3722.

The bill's opponents said it would violate physician-patient confidentiality, might deter persons for fear they'd be turned in and it would require extra paperwork.

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who represents southwestern Arizona, said the bill "is mean-spirited" because it requires an illegal immigrant's employer to pay for the treatment.

U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., who represents Green Valley, couldn't be reached for comment Thursday.

A bill by U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., will send about $40 million this year to Arizona medical facilities to help pay for unrecovered costs of treating illegals. Arizona hospitals actually lose about $100 million a year.

"Going broke"

Rohrabacher supported his bill in a floor speech saying:

"The hospitals and emergency rooms on our nation's border, especially in California, are certainly going broke trying to treat illegal aliens who are streaming into their facilities."

He added "There is no doubt about the horrible impact that it is having," saying many come here already suffering from long-term diseases'

"We are talking about diseases that require hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes even up to $1 million in treatment."

Rohrabacher said his bill is voluntary.

But hospitals which turn in the identities of the illegals it treats would not lose federal funds.

"A hospital that does not want to receive federal money does not have to participate in this bill," he said.

One sad part of the problem Rohrabacher said is "sometimes legal immigrants and U.S. citizens end up having less bestowed on them by our government than the illegal immigrants."

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