Related articles:

Hospitals fear loss of migrant-care funds Readers: Feds should pay for migrants' care

Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps Construction
West-Press
Printing Health Care
CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE
DIRECTOR OF HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic

Time is running out for Congress to renew a federal program that reimburses local hospitals for providing emergency medical treatment to illegal immigrants.

It's imperative that lawmakers keep this program going so that border communities are not further burdened by expenses that rightly should be borne by Washington.

Unfortunately, the program's chances for new life appear slim.

"There really aren't very many opportunites left in the session to renew this program," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who helped create the reimbursement program in 2003. "I'll continue to make inquiries, but I think our best opportunity has passed."

Under Section 1011 of the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, the government allocated $1 billion over five years to be shared by all states for emergency care for illegal immigrants. Section 1011 is set to expire Sept. 30.

Kyl told us Friday that under the program's formula, Arizona has received between $200 million and $250 million in reimbursement funds. The program covers only emergency care, meaning that once a patient is stabilized, additional costs aren't the government's responsibility.

The money provided by the government doesn't come close to meeting the actual costs associated with such emergency care, however. In most cases, hospitals receive between 15 cents and 30 cents for every dollar they spend on illegal-immigrant emergency care. But even those amounts can be beneficial to a hospital's bottom line.

Kevin Burns, University Medical Center's chief financial officer, told us Friday that treating foreign patients without insurance costs UMC about $5 million a year. With Section 1011, the hospital has been able to recoup about $1.5 million each year from the federal government.

Similarly, the Carondelet Health Network, which runs St. Joseph's, St. Mary's and Tucson Heart Hospital in Tucson and Holy Cross Hospital in Nogales, spends about $4 million a year to care for illegal immigrants, Bill Pike, Carondelet's director of public policy, told the Star earlier this year. Carondelet received $1.85 million in reimbursement in 2006.

If the program isn't renewed, it will leave Southern Arizonans holding the bag — again.

"We'll be back to where we were a few years ago, with no assistance for hospitals and other health-care providers," Burns said. "It's like a stealth tax. It's an unfunded mandate."

The program should be renewed because immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. The federal government is shirking its duty by leaving border communities to their own devices to pay for costs associated with illegal immigration.

Reimbursements to hospitals are shamefully low as it is. For the government to look the other way as hospitals rack up expenses, takes a leap from shameful to irresponsible.

Hospitals are required by law to treat anyone who arrives in need of care. They are not about to stop doing their jobs. Despite the government's slide toward malfeasance, hospitals won't leave illegal immigrants dying in the desert of sunstrokes or after rollover accidents.

"Hospitals care for these patients. It's part of our mission to make sure they get taken care of," Burns said. "But it seems that hospitals are the only parties that care."

Residents of Arizona and other states along the Mexican border are disproportionately affected by illegal immigration. That's why lawmakers, especially those in Arizona's congressional delegation, should do everything possible to make sure Section 1011 is renewed.

The border, after all, belongs to all Americans.