Undocumented Alien Emergency Medical Assistance Amendments of 2004

UNDOCUMENTED ALIEN EMERGENCY MEDICAL ASSISTANCE AMENDMENTS OF 2004 -- (House of Representatives - May 17, 2004)

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Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), the author of the pending legislation, be allowed to control debate on this bill on the majority side.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Texas?

There was no objection.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Today, Congress has the opportunity to reassure the American people that there are elected representatives on their sides. No vote could be more indicative as to the priorities of a Member of Congress.

Is America to have a policy of unrestricted health care for illegal immigrants at the expense of American citizens and legal residents? That is the issue we are discussing today. Voting for H.R. 3722 means that my colleagues are not in favor of spending our limited health care dollars in an unrestricted way to give illegal aliens all the health care that they need in terms of today's standards.

Those Members of Congress voting against H.R. 3722 are draining limited health care dollars that should be going to our own citizens and legal residents.

H.R. 3722 would put some common-sense controls over the $1 billion fund that was created by a rider that was added onto the Medicare bill that passed just a few months ago.

What does H.R. 3722 do? One thing it does not do is add a burden of paperwork to the hospital emergency rooms, and that is a bogus argument. I would warn my fellow constituents that that lie has been spread around this body in order to get people to vote in the wrong way. It is a bogus argument.

To be reimbursed, the hospitals will be asking questions. To get part of that $1 billion fund they will be asking questions anyway. This legislation does not add considerably to any major degree to those questions. It simply adds a following question: Who was the immigrant's last employer or his current employer? Plus, the hospital must then take a photo or a fingerprint, which may be required to get that fund money in the first place. This information would then be available to the Department of Homeland Security and the INS.

This legislation does not require any reporting by the hospitals or the doctors or anyone else to the Department of Homeland Security. That, too, is a bogus argument that is going around, only we will hear it in the debate, I am sure. The hospitals do no investigating, no reporting; they simply have the information that is given to them when the patient is put into the system and that is made available to government agencies. It is the government agencies, the Department of Homeland Security and INS, that do the investigating, that do the rest of the work. Do not fall for bogus arguments.
Our hospitals today feel compelled to provide extensive and even long-term treatment to illegal aliens. That is what our bill, H.R. 3722, does second. It makes sure that our hospitals are relieved of this enormous burden of trying to provide unlimited health care to any illegal that comes into an emergency room.

We have been giving heart bypasses, even transplants. A young girl from Mexico had $5 million worth of expenditures in heart transplants just a few months ago, and then when the transplant did not work, her family, who were here illegally and actually had emigrated here with a $5,000 fee to a coyote, then sued the hospital because the transplant did not work. Well, this cost us billions of dollars a year.

If someone has a genetic disease or something like that, our emergency rooms should not be treating this in the first place; and the fact is, this bill will alleviate that burden by saying that only if a person's life is imminently threatened by that malady do the hospitals have to focus on that and treat someone whose life is immediately being threatened rather than provide hundreds of thousands of dollars of long-term cancer care, genetic problems, et cetera.

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This alone will save billions of dollars that should be going to the American people. The doctor will only determine how much treatment is necessary to get this person to a transportation source that will get them back to their home country so their home country can pay for the health care costs, rather than our senior citizens and our young people being deprived of the resources for their health care.

Number three. If it is a life-threatening emergency, the illegal alien will be treated. There is no doubt about that. This bill does not change that. But if he has no insurance, the alien's employer or former employer will be given the bill. Businessmen will be given the bill if they hire illegal immigrants who end up draining away our health care dollars. This makes all the sense in the world.

Now, the businessmen are coming out against this, saying how can we judge? In 2005, there is a system already being worked on and being established that with one phone call they will be able to determine if they are hiring an illegal immigrant. If a businessman has not made that phone call and has hired someone without checking it out, then he will pay for the health care costs rather than having the taxpayer pay for it.

We will hear a lot of people trying to tell us there are a lot of other things in this bill that are not. But it comes down to this: Whose side are we on? Do we care about our own senior citizens more than we care about strangers from overseas? Do we care more about our own people than we care about strangers from overseas?

If we keep trying to provide everything for everybody, our system is going to break down, and it is doing so right now in California. I would urge my colleagues to support 3722 and prove to their constituents just whose side they are on. We could have corrected this a long time ago, but we hear people all the time, and we will hear it today, with every excuse for not doing something. But the fact is some people in our country are benefiting from illegal immigration. They are very powerful. But it is hurting American citizens, and this bill tries to put a stop to that, or at least turn that situation around today with H.R. 3722.

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Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, this is not the way to deal with immigration problems. I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3722. As a matter of fact, I am surprised at the gentleman from California. Does he not understand that this would transform our health care personnel into the border patrol? This bill will have a disastrous impact on emergency care and community hospitals throughout America.

Mr. Speaker, hospitals, doctors, nurses, and health care personnel are trained to be caregivers, not adjuncts of immigration law enforcement. Do our health care personnel not have enough to do already without imposing this huge reporting burden on an already overextended health care system?

Mr. Speaker, forcing health care personnel to start taking fingerprints and snapping pictures of patients suspected of being undocumented when perhaps they need a blood transfusion or something to save their lives will cause people who urgently need medical care to refrain from seeking such care because they fear that they may die trying to get service or they will be deported. We all know that in health care an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When any persons delay their access to health care, their medical condition is much worse.

I would urge a "no" vote on this bill. It is unsound public policy. I am ashamed of it. Do not do it.