(Arizona) Bill would require hospitals to check immigration status

[TomCADem]

Source: Arizona Daily Sun

PHOENIX -- A state legislator is moving to put Arizona's hospitals on the front line in the fight against illegal immigration.

The proposal by Rep. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, would require hospitals to "reasonably confirm" that those who show up at their doors are in the country legally if they do not produce proof of valid health insurance. HB2293 lists methods that hospital officials and employees can use to make that determination.

But the measure also says if legal status cannot be verified, someone from the hospital "must immediately contact the local federal immigration office or a local law enforcement agency to report the incident."

The legislation is drawing alarm from the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association.

"When does this begin or end?" asked Pete Wertheim, the organization's vice president of strategic communication. "What other industry should be screening their customers for citizenship verification?"


Read more: http://azdailysun.com/news/local/state-and-regional/bill-would-require-hospitals-to-check-immigration-status/article_a9ad6973-3227-552d-9816-82870b8fcf4e.html

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Republican State Representative Steve Smith said his goal is to find out the amount of money hospitals spend to treat undocumented immigrants. Of course, if passed it would likely dissuade undocumented immigrants from seeking health care since their presence in the emergency room would trigger a call to the cops or feds.

It will be interesting to see if Marco Rubio disqualifies himself from the Republican nomination by embracing President Obama's immigration policies. What is more likely is that they will nominate someone who caters to the anti-immigrant extremists then add Rubio to the ticket in order to show the general population that he was just kidding.

[Downwinder]

1. Just remember to take your passport

when you go to Arizona.

[Firebrand Gary]

2. I'm pretty sure thats a direct violation of HIPAA.

However, Mr Smith must really, REALLY like the Democratic party. That's one hell of a gift!

[atreides1]

4. Why is it a gift?

The Republican/Tea/Klan party have pretty much the majority of the voters in their pockets. Only in Pima and possibly Cochise county do the Democrats have a stronghold. But from Casa Grande all the up to the Grand Canyon the Repkues and their racist voter base have got it locked down!

The only thing that will change that is a virus that kills only stupid Republicans...don't see that happening!

[ChazInAz]

10. Used to work in Healthcare in Arizona.

If I recall correctly, a few years ago, one of our legislative loons tried to bull a similar idea through the Phoenix Circus. Every hospital in the state turned flamethrowers on that person. It's not only a HIPAA violation, it flies in the face of all medical ethics and basic humanity....things that our Arizona powers-that-be are unfamiliar with.

[RKP5637]

3. I have an idea for more screening, that legislators in AZ be screened for mental competency.

[kestrel91316]

5. In a just world, the politicians who voted for this would be

the first to die in the epidemic of whatever that is bound to result.

[SHRED]

6. Isn't it in everyone's interest to treat sick people?

Does Arizona want a plague or other infectious disease to go untreated?


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[OldRedneck]

7. WTF is next??

I'm an Advanced Life Support EMT with a rural rescue squad in Virginia.

WTF is next?

I can see it now -- we are called to the scene, arrive and find an individual in cardiac arrest . . . we throw everything we have at him . . . CPR; insert airway, slap on a BVM with high-flow O2, and breath for him, IO port with epi every 5 minutes . . . high flow diesel to the ER . . . and the ER nurse says, well, no green card, dump him on the ground, kick some dirt on him.

I really, really hate Republikans.

[SHRED]

8. Let's start at the Governor's mansion

And at the yard workers of the old RWNT's that inhabit so much of AZ.

These racist pricks want the labor done but they do not want to pay anything but slave wages.


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[SHRED]

9. Here in California...

...I can't tell you how many times RW'ers I know claim to "know someone who works at a hospital".

The story is the same..."all the 'illegals' that are clogging up the emergency rooms". That is what their alleged friends say.

I then ask them two key questions: "How do your friends know they are here illegally?...and...Do they ask for a birth certificate?"

Nothing but gears clanking in their pea brains and a blank stare. They can't even answer simple questions because they are so caught up in their racist hatred.

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[Lobo27]

11. This wont end well

So is this a brown people don't come to the hospital legislation. Cause I can see lawsuits, say a legal Mexican American goes and something happens and they wont help or worse they die. Or taken into custody unfairly and die jail... This is gonna be a mess.

[alp227]

12. I bet Smith would demand this law be pulled once a WHITE CITIZEN dies as a result of the law!

But not if the citizen was a Mexican-American.

[struggle4progress]

13. Juan Crow is just as ugly as Jim Crow was

[Le Taz Hot]

14. So, someone shows up to the E.R.,

bleeding profusely, and the hospital staff, if they can't determine legal residency, must let him bleed out AND report him to the authorities? The lack of human decency and compassion . . . what happened in their lives that they literally have no empathy or sympathy of their fellow humans?

[SHRED]

15. or...

...someone shows up with TB or another highly contagious disease and they are turned away?