Speech #1040141986

Mr. Chairman. as county supervisor In 1994. I asked the Clinton administration to declare a Federal emergency over illegal immigration in San Diego County. That year my county reduced its contract with UCSD Medical center to provide emergency services to indigent patients by 50 percent or a total of $5 million. The Board of Supervisors implemented this reduction based on estimates that hall of the indigent patients receiving emergency care at UCSD were illegal immigrants. and that these costs should not be the burden of local government. President Clinton. who denied my request to declare a slate of emergency in 1994. is now threatening to veto our balanced budget package. He should think long and hard about denying hospitals funds to ensure that they can keep providing services to our most vulnerable citizens. His veto threat particularly jeopardizes California hospitals keeping their emergency room doors open to everyone. President Clinton allocated only $150 million in his budget to States nationwide for health care for illegal immigrants. The 7 year Balanced Budget Reconciliation Act. contains funding to reimburse hospitals for health care which they are required to provide to illegal immigrants. An approximately $3 billion trust fund will be made available to States most severely impacted by illegal immigration. California will receive the largest share since it has the highest population ol illegals in the Nation. What we have created is a pot of money to pay hospitals for the services the Federal Government requires them to provide. It is unprecedented. Previously. the State and local governments and hospitals have borne the responsibility for the Federal Governments failure to secure our borders. Now. for the first time. hospitals will send the bill for illegal immigrants health care where it rightfully belongs: to Washington. DC. What we have seen in California is a direct consequence of the Federal Governments failure to secure our borders. Our ability to provide health care to our poor and disabled citizens is being jeopardized by the increasing costs of providing health care to illegal aliens. I would point to Los Angeles County health care systems near collapse as an example of the strain providing care to illegal immigrants places on emergency rooms already stretched beyond their resources. An estimated 96.000 babies will be born to undocumented women covered by MediCal. Californias Medicaid program. at a cost of $230 million in medical bills this year. Because hospital workers are prohibited by law from asking a patients immigration status. these costs are absorbed and paid for out of other parts of the hospitals budget. An increasing share of these dollars must cover the costs of Californias large. and growing. illegal immigration population. The trust fund we are creating today represents the first time that Congress accepts that providing emergency health care services to illegal immigrants is a Federal responsibility. not a State responsibility. Past Congresses have failed in this regard. Today. we take the first step toward addressing this problem.