Hospitals to Get Funds for ER Care

WASHINGTON — Hospitals in California are expected to receive a large portion of the money earmarked by the federal government for facilities whose finances are strained by the cost of providing emergency room care for illegal immigrants.

Hospitals can begin applying today for the funds under a four-year, $1-billion program announced Monday by the Department of Health and Human Services.

California hospitals are in line to receive more than any other state -- nearly $71 million in the first year of the program, or about 30% of the initial national allocation of $250 million. Funds are distributed based on a state's percentage of undocumented immigrants and on the number of apprehensions of individuals in the state illegally.

"Southern California should get about half of that, $35 million, because we have a higher proportion of illegal immigrants than the rest of the state," said John Lott, a spokesman for the Hospital Assn. of Southern California.

Emergency rooms are, by default, the medical provider for many of the estimated 8 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States. Under the law, hospitals participating in federal insurance programs, such as Medicare, must provide emergency care to anyone, regardless of ability to pay.

The Los Angeles County health department estimated that in 2003 the annual bill at public hospitals for uninsured illegal immigrants reached $340 million.

The new federal program, one of many provisions of the 2003 bill that created the Medicare prescription drug benefit, will not offset the full cost to hospitals. But it marks the first time that the federal government is taking a direct responsibility to help pay.

"The big victory would been full funding," said Lott, whose organization represents about 95% of the public and private hospitals in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial and San Diego counties. "But this is still a victory, because we have formal recognition by the federal government that they have a responsibility to care for illegal immigrants.

"Any one of these counties could make a legitimate claim for all the $35 million, and still need a lot more," Lott said.

John Wallace, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, said he did not know how much the county's public health facilities would get. But he agreed that whatever the amount, it wouldn't be nearly enough to pay the cost of providing healthcare for illegal immigrants.