A Texas Reader Notes Convenient Gaps In Official's Knowledge Of ER Users' Immigration Status

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From: Brian Welch (e-mail him)

The Austin American-Statesman recently reported shocking facts about immigrant health care costs.

According to the story and based on the Integrated Care Collaboration—a non-profit that cares for the uninsured and low-income Central Texans—during the past six years, eight people from Austin and one from Luling racked up 2,678 emergency room visits in Central Texas, costing hospitals and taxpayers $3 million.[Austin ER's Got 2,678 Visits from Nine People Over Six Years, by Mary Ann Roser, Austin American-Statesman, April 1, 2009]

One of the nine spent more than a third of last year in the emergency room for a total of 145 days. That same patient totaled 554 ER visits from 2003 through 2008.

Said Ann Kitchen, ICC's executive director: "We looked at frequent users of emergency departments ... and that's the extreme. What we're really trying to do is find out who's using our emergency rooms ... and find solutions."

Kitchen claims: "all nine speak English," but "she did not know their citizenship status."  Interesting, isn't it, how there are holes in her information?

The district is seeking ways to reduce the load on ERs by better managing where patients who don't have a real emergency go for care, Travis County District Healthcare CEO and President Patricia Young Brown said.

At any rate, I have an iron-clad solution for Kitchen (email her) and Brown (email contact information here), one that the Texas Legislature conveniently now in biennial session, could easily address (contact here) had it the political will: Enforce the border!  

Welch is a US Navy veteran who works in the nuclear power industry that, he says, "hasn't been outsourced—yet –only because they haven't figured out a way to do it effectively". His two previous letters about Texas Governor Rick Perry are here and here.

 

Since his earlier correspondence was posted Welch notes that he's become what Dr. Chuck Baldwin might call a "Missouri Information Analysis Terrorist," or what in another age would have been simply a "patriot."