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Article Date: 24 Apr 2013 - 0:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Hundreds Of Illegal Immigrants Are Being Deported By U.S. Hospitals
As United States hospitals deal with the constant need to cut expensive costs of care, some are choosing "unlawful" deportations of illegal patients in order to save money, according to a new report by the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University School of Law and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
The report revealed that over the past six years, several organizations have registered over 800 cases of attempted or achieved "medical repatriations" - a term used when a hospital deports an injured or sick immigrant to a different medical facility in their home country without their consent.
According to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, hospitals are required to screen and treat all patients regardless of their health insurance coverage or immigration status - for emergency care.
Once a patient is in stabilized condition, the hospital is technically not required to continue care. However, some hospitals have been deporting illegal immigrants even though the U.S. government is the only authority that can perform this action.
As outlined in the report, medical repatriation is considered a human rights violation mainly because many of these hospitals act as "unauthorized immigration officers."
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, experts suggest that medical repatriation may become a more common practice. Many new people will have coverage under the law, while illegal immigrants will not. Additionally, hospitals will be losing large amounts of Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments - or DSH payments - that are given to hospitals that give care to a larger number of undocumented immigrants or Medicaid patients.
The report said:
"Faced with the prospect of decreased DSH payments, many hospitals that regularly treat this patient population may resort to medical repatriation in an effort to offset the costs of providing post-acute care to undocumented immigrants."
Most of the cases of medical repatriation occur when the patients are in an unconscious state. The hospital choose this method of action as opposed to treating the patients, because they believe the flights costs will be significantly less than all the medical expenses.
As of now, the American Hospital Association does not monitor hospitals that remove or deport immigrants. The American Medical Association has emphasized the need for better policy and care for immigrant populations.
The Center for Social Justice has urged the Department of Health and Human Services to monitor medical repatriations and enforce sanctions on hospitals that take part in "involuntary" medical repatriations.
In 2009, a report stated that Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital was offering to send immigrant patients home to their countries, instead of racking up medical bills in the U.S. that they would be unable to pay. Written by Kelly Fitzgerald
Copyright: Medical News Today
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MLA
11 May. 2013.
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posted by Evelyn H on 4 May 2013 at 6:23 pm
Some people here seem to have grasped the wrong end of the stick.
These 'illegal immigrants' are not being denied primary care, but are being repatriated to a hospital in their own countries.
When my granddaughter was seriously injured on a properly visaed holiday to the US, SHE was sent back (at my daughter's expense, mind you) to Australia after her immediate primary care.
I do NOT see this as a bad thing, at all. I cannot see why it should be illegal to send any non-US citizen home for hospital care unless they have legal permanent citizen status.
Neither do I see any problem with hospitals being denied to right to repatriate these people.
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posted by martha long on 1 May 2013 at 9:49 am
About time hospitals get their act together and stop allowing high medical bills not paid by illegal immigrants. Impossible to get people to pay for costs incurred if they have no social security card or legal address.
Even then it is not a sure bet they will pay.
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posted by Emily on 26 Apr 2013 at 2:50 pm
As a recent college graduate, I am worried about finding a job so I (an American citizen) can have health insurance to aid in paying for prescriptions, GP visits, and emergency care if needed (not to mention paying for groceries, housing, and gasoline - easily covered for those abusing the system by programs like WIC, supplemental housing, and cash assistance). I am disgusted that anyone can say that illegal immigrants (most of whom send American money OUT of our country) DESERVE free medical treatment. Have you ever even seen a hospital bill? Do you realize how much an overnight stay costs? Someone has to pay for that and saying that money spent "is a drop in a bucket" is an incredibly uninformed statement to make. There were an estimated 11.6 million undocumented immigrants as of 2010. Even if each hospital visit only cost $1.00, that is $11.6 MILLION DOLLARS. Enjoy paying for that....
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posted by Megan on 24 Apr 2013 at 7:44 pm
There is the right ways to deport illegal immigrants, this is NOT one of them. Not giving them care in situations where they need it the most just to ship them back to their country where they wont get the medical care they deserve is unlawful. Yes, if you want to live here you should be legal but deporting them while they're health is unstable is just plain wrong to me. Just because they're illegal doesn't make them any less of a person. They deserve proper care just like us citizens do.
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posted by Joe Harkins on 24 Apr 2013 at 3:22 am
One of the disadvantages of the trend away from a broad, classical education that many of the responses here evidence is the loss of the awareness of solutions to current problems, using older solutions to older but not really dissimilar problems.
Case in point, is the apparent ignorance that the problem was addressed quite well a few hundred years ago by an Irish author. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest proposal" ( http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html ) tells us it would be far more efficient to eat these illegal immigrants instead of the financially wasteful and environmentally horrid practice of expending precious fossil fuels to ship them out.
Of course, it is highly unlikely even the "tender meat" revenues would cover the military budget, but that's a subject for discussion on another day.
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posted by Don_in_Odessa on 24 Apr 2013 at 3:05 am
Only an idiot would view the deportation of an "Illegal Immigrant" as illegal.
I say more power to them. Criminals should not be rewarded. Reminds me of some bankers these days.
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posted by Antonio on 24 Apr 2013 at 3:03 am
SW Border Hospitals need to do the same thing. So many hospitals have closed and or closing because of all the free medical care provided to individuals that are living here illegally or they came the US for the free medical. Many doctors and hospitals in Mexico actually instruct the patients how to do it.
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posted by Jan A. on 24 Apr 2013 at 3:03 am
I am from denmark and I am poor. I have always been taken care of by my government. I am here in the USA on a student visa and I regularly use and abuse the hospitals and any other free stuff I can get from your government. Thank you I like not working.
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posted by c. you on 24 Apr 2013 at 2:59 am
Illegal immigrants should still have a right to care. If someone has to wait because of it - maybe your 'case' isn't an emergency... ER's screen you based on the degree of your injuries. If you have to wait for hours - you are most likely using the ER for convenience...so, get out and suck it up until your doc or urgent care is available. The cost factor of covering illegal immigrants is a drop in a bucket - nickel and diming the cost isn't working... and a human being is getting the shaft for faulty mathematics. Shame on that!
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posted by Anny on 24 Apr 2013 at 2:41 am
My God My God What kind of slime of the earth have we become ?? For Profit Hospitals that pay a few investors should be outlawed!
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posted by Will on 24 Apr 2013 at 2:37 am
How is it considered an "unlawful" deportation when the immigrants are here illegally in the first place ? Is this really what we have come to America ?
IF (and that is a BIG if) America was back on track financially, and IF I was not paying more in taxes than ever before, and IF we were not in the middle of a huge economic downturn, I could see the desire and ability to help others who were here illegally, but at this current point in time for the US, we need to focus on cutting spending which INCLUDES spending millions of dollars on helping illegal aliens, no matter what type of help it is. There is a process for them to go through if they wish to become citizens of the USA and pay taxes, ect.
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posted by John on 24 Apr 2013 at 2:35 am
Send them home they are illegal, I am sick of my money paying for these people. Send them home, give Hospitals the muscle to do this, maybe illegals(who are nothing but criminals because they are here illegally) will think twice about the medical scam they pull.. SEND THEM ALL HOME NOW.
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posted by David on 24 Apr 2013 at 2:14 am
Good for the hospitals. I'm tired of paying high medical costs so hopsitals can break even or profit because illegals are getting treated and not paying their bill.
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posted by Marci on 24 Apr 2013 at 1:50 am
Why should hospitals/taxpayers be stuck with the medical bills of illegal aliens?
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posted by F. Rachel on 24 Apr 2013 at 1:39 am
Send them back home. I have waited hours in ER because of the illegals and have suffered because of it. I pay taxes and give to multiple charities when I can. My hospital bills are NOT paid by our government--I pay them and I am sick of the illegals and drug addicts and welfare
cheats. We seem to have more and more of them under Obama as I get less and less decent care!!!!
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posted by Michael on 24 Apr 2013 at 1:25 am
Finally, there is an institution in this country that uses common sense!
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'Hundreds Of Illegal Immigrants Are Being Deported By U.S. Hospitals'
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