Title: Health insurance for undocumented immigrants? It's only fair to all of us | TheHill
Headings: Health insurance for undocumented immigrants? It's only fair to all of us
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Health insurance for undocumented immigrants? It's only fair to all of us

Content: The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act ( EMTALA) was passed more than thirty years ago to prevent some hospitals from closing their doors entirely to the uninsured and diverting them to competitor hospitals. Moreover, it reflects an intuition that we don’t want people to die in the streets. Hospital emergency rooms must take them in and can’t discharge until the danger of dying in the street is no longer imminent. So, we have a policy that requires some services to be provided to patients who are prohibited from paying their fair share for those services through the usual mechanism of paying an insurance premium. Conversely, undocumented immigrants pay into government safety-net systems that they cannot access. Most undocumented immigrants pay federal and state taxes thereby contributing to the Medicare and Medicaid systems. When an undocumented immigrant suffers, say, a significant workplace injury, he is brought to the hospital which must accept him because of EMTALA. After stabilizing him, the hospital may need to transfer him to less intensive facility for rehabilitation care. However, EMTALA does not require any facility other than hospital emergency rooms to accept an uninsured patient. In many states, Medicaid would cover the cost of a rehabilitation or skilled nursing facility.