From: Walter Watts (wlwatts@cox.net)
Date: Sun Jun 01 2003 - 15:39:38 MDT
"In managing the city's Medicaid program, the mayor faces one huge
variable...New York City's undocumented immigrant population. The
greater New York City area is one of the country's top five destinations
of undocumented immigrants, and according to some observers it is the
No. 1 destination for employment-age males.
U.S. hospitals write off between $1 billion and $2 billion each year in
health care costs for the treatment of undocumented immigrants. Those
costs are attributable chiefly to care of the 300,000 undocumented
immigrants that flow across the U.S.-Mexico border annually. The total
Medicaid expenditure for the emergency medical treatment of undocumented
immigrants now approaches $ 3 billion per year (nationally).
New York City has no real ability to gauge the number of its
undocumented immigrants, as the group is perennially unresponsive to the
census and other measures designed to determine who lives here. This
makes efficient management of programs like Medicaid all the more
difficult.
As is the case with most large cities, it is because the real dimension
of New York's undocumented immigrant population is unknown -- though
likely in the millions -- and unregulated that it can unexpectedly
mushroom to budget-breaking proportions.
Medicaid, which regularly accounts for 10 percent of the city's budget
and is already the most expensive such program in the nation, has
swelled an additional 40 percent, or approximately 132,000 new
enrollees, under Mayor Bloomberg.
....each new adult signed up will cost the city $1,300 and each new
child $375. To get an idea just how much money is involved, consider
that New York's Gov. Pataki, in bargaining with the city over cuts and a
bailout, proposed $1 billion in Medicaid cuts.
.....the one-quarter share that the city must contribute to its Medicaid
payments is already $4 billion.....Senators Kyl and McCain of Arizona
have introduced legislation that would reimburse the states an
additional $1.45 billion per year as payment for medical services to
undocumented immigrants...New York and other large U.S. cities continue
to be a beacon for the country's undocumented immigrant population,
Here's the key. Where are tax payers rights?
...."all Americans can expect an even greater percentage of their tax
dollars to be consumed by the Medicaid programs of our large cities."
-- Walter Watts Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc. "Reminding you to help control the human population. Have your sexual partner spayed or neutered." --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
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