mikey

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?...VFeXk3MTQ5OTA3

North Jersey hospitals struggle with medial tourists
Sunday, June 10, 2007

By MARY JO LAYTON
STAFF WRITER

North Jersey hospitals are treating increasing numbers of foreigners who travel to the U.S. for medical care -- and leave without paying their bill.

Mindful that U.S. emergency rooms must take all comers, these medical tourists head from the airport straight to the hospital -- sometimes armed with CT scans and doctor's notes. As soon as they're well, they're back on the plane home.

They're leaving hospitals -- and taxpayers -- on the hook for millions at a time when 40 percent of the state's hospitals are operating in the red.

Hospital executives report numerous cases, including:

# Holy Name Hospital provided $1.9 million in care to a 67-year-old woman from the Dominican Republic, an accident victim whose desperate son maxed out his credit cards to fly his mother here for treatment. The Teaneck hospital also lost hundreds of thousands caring for patients from Trinidad, Korea and the Philippines.

# A woman from Peru showed up at Hackensack University Medical Center after her doctors at home found a growth on her liver. A patient from India flew in for open-heart surgery, and a man from Ecuador arrived in the emergency room in need of an operation for an aortic aneurysm. The cost for caring for the three patients: $515,000.

# Several area hospitals have seen a growing number of foreign patients in their maternity wards -- including a doctor from Egypt -- who clearly have the means to pay. They get more than free care: Their newborns are granted citizenship.

"We're beginning to hear more and more from hospitals about illegal aliens basically taking a flight in, being treated and taking off back home and leaving hospitals with the bill," said Ron Czajkowski, a vice president of the New Jersey Hospital Association.

"There are apparently cases of individuals who figured out how to take advantage of the system," Czajkowski said.

Many are encouraged to come by family members living in the area -- relatives who know the quality of cardiac or cancer care offered by the region's best hospitals.

Some of the sick wage an epic effort to get here because their own country's health care system can't help them. They scrape together airfare, and they travel in dire health looking for treatment in the land of hope. In other cases, savvy patients select the hospital that specializes in treating their ailment, book a flight, then take a taxi straight to the emergency room -- keenly aware that federal law requires U.S. hospitals to provide emergency treatment regardless of a patient's legal status or ability to pay.

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Real World

You're just a racist.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

patsfan13

Granting automatic citizenship to new borns made sense when coming to America took many months, and when there was no welfare state to exploit. Now things have changed and our laws need to reflect these changes. Ultimatly the tax-payers get to foot the bill for the freeloaders. If American taxpaying citizens incured these expenses they would be wiped out fincially for the foreigners and illegal aliens it is a windfall.

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"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

Harry Boy

The Invasion Was A Success

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

BelichickFan

One reason I like the National ID card with picture and finger print. No valid card with picture and print to validate ? Bye.

PatsFanInVa

Is the proposed remedy that hospital ERs turn away non-citizens?

I guess you could let in documented aliens, i.e., "green card" aliens.

Otherwise, German tourists who are shot, but aren't quite dead in Florida (for example) shouldn't get care, as "medical tourists"?

Should tourism in this country, "medical" or otherwise, be an at-risk proposition?

A North Jersey paper, huh? Okay, we know the claimed impact of non-citizens getting care through hospitals. Since no alternative is mentioned, we can't do an impact study of the proposed remedy.

But an area that close to NYC might think twice before banging the drum too loudly in favor of an inhospitable tourism climate -- and of course we won't mention the symbiotic relationship of undocumented aliens and "native-born" Americans, whether in NJ or elsewhere.

Let's just stick to tourism. Think about it. No care for tourists? Would you travel to a country with no medical care for tourists?

PFnV

BelichickFan

They should have a valid ID from another country and we (the hospital in question) should get money from the National Health Care that most countries out there have.

maverick4

It's a good question. We shouldn't deny tourists medical care when they visit the country.

I think the answer is to have stronger borders so there is less resentment about non-citizens getting care.

BelichickFan

Based on my relatives from England, I am under the impression tourists can (do) buy short term health insurance when coming over. That way everyone's covered, this shouldn't be an issue.

Real World

how about sealing the border so that the 20 million illegals aren't here to use the ER as their health insurance card. Then the couple of thousand problems like German tourists would be far easier to take. Instead we get foreign tourists, and 20 million illegals, all of which the taxpayer, and insurance payer (like myself to the tune of almost $500 a month) are footed the bill for.

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To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897