Immigrant Advocates Slam plan to check immigrants in hospitals
Thursday, August 26, 2004 at 06:12PM
TheSpook
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 ]
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