Inquiring Minds
March 29th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
With no objections, the House adopted a budget amendment today that requires the Health and Human Services Commission to report the cost of benefits and services provided to undocumented immigrants. Temple Republican Rep. Dianne Delisi said she proposed the amendment to provide information to help the U.S. Congress in making budget decisions.
“We believe that there is more money in uncompensated care that should be coming to Texas,” she said.
According to federal law, hospitals are required to provide emergency care to anyone who needs it, regardless of immigration status. The amendment would require hospitals to collect information on how much uncompensated care goes to undocumented immigrants.
Delisi said the information would be collected on a purely anonymous basis, solely for statistical data.
At a joint State Affairs and Border and International Affairs committee hearing yesterday, Dumas Republican Rep. David Swinford asked whether hospital emergency rooms or schools could legally ask about immigration status for the purposes of data collection. The undocumented immigrant population is difficult to track or attach numbers to because, well, they’re undocumented.
Anne Dunkelberg, associate director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, said that inquiring into a patient’s immigration status could deter people from seeking the emergency care they need.
Marisol Perez, an attorney from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that schools are prohibited from asking about social security numbers or immigration status according to federal law. In the hospital context, she encouraged lawmakers to “tread carefully” and make sure that healthcare would be the priority. “It would have to be clear to individuals that this information would not be used or reported to law enforcement agencies,” she said.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
[…] not eligible for these services, so they’re not costing the state very much,” he said. An amendment was already added to the House budget bill, requiring hospitals to report how much uncompensated […]