Immigrant Advocates Slam plan to check immigrants in hospitals

IMMIGRANT rights advocates and the Asian Pacific Islander community have denounced President George W. Bush for adding yet another barrier to immigrants' health care. Representative Mike Honda (D-San Jose), chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (Capac) last week joined his colleagues in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) in opposing the proposed federal rules linking immigrants' residency status to hospital care. Last December, the U.S. Congress earmarked $1 billion over four years to help hospitals pay for the treatment of undocumented immigrants. This funding was included in the landmark Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003.  Under the rules, hospitals have to ask patients about their immigration status to receive funding, a prospect that alarms hospital executives and immigrant rights groups. In a letter to Bush, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS), Honda and 20 other Congress officials said they oppose the proposal's  patient-based  documentation  approach that would require health care providers to request information about a patient's citizenship or immigration status, include that information in the patient's file, and maintain that information on site. [more ]