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: 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. But as these patients are ineligible for this “benefit” to which they contribute, they are essentially stuck in the hospital which must care for them without compensation. Of course, hospitals recover such expenses through higher charges to patients with private health insurance. It is clear that undocumented immigrants receive some benefits from a health-care system to which they are prohibited from contributing and do not receive benefits from government insurance systems to which they contribute. These inequities are not only unfair, but they also make our hospitals and health-care system less efficient and effective. Keeping an injured worker in the hospital who can be better and less expensively cared for at a rehabilitation facility is wasteful and disruptive of the health-care delivery system.