Video - Outrageous! Illegal aliens and how they drive up our health care costs.

Death penalty sought for illegal alien murder suspect

Prosecutors in Los Angeles are seeking the death penalty for a 20-year-old illegal alien gang member charged with the brutal murder of a promising high school athlete. It was a crime one immigration reform activist says should have been prevented.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office announced it will seek the death penalty against Pedro Espinoza for the 2008 killing of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw II. Espinoza is an illegal immigrant and member of the notorious 18th Street gang. Shaw was a standout running back on his high school football team.

In June, a judge ordered Espinoza to trial for first-degree murder, along with a special circumstance gang allegation. The suspect has pleaded not guilty. Espinoza had been released from a jail on a firearms charge a day before Shaw was killed.

Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform says Espinoza's release last year was inexcusable.

"The local police never took the trouble to find out he was an illegal alien and remand him to federal authorities," he points out. "If they had done that, they would not have put him back out on the streets. He would have been remanded to federal custody and never had the opportunity to murder Jamiel Shaw."

Indeed, Shaw's parents are suing the county on grounds that Espinoza should have been turned over to immigration authorities instead of being freed.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=660644

Illegal Aliens Could Close Your Hospital

Paying The Price For Illegal Care

Health Care: Democrats are right that uncompensated emergency care for the uninsured is driving up costs. What they don't say is it's illegal immigrants who are bankrupting ERs, and the federal government is encouraging them.

Last decade, the Clinton administration added teeth to a little-known Health and Human Services Department regulation mandating that hospitals provide emergency treatment even to illegals.

Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA, hospitals can't even ask for a patient's immigration status or ability to pay prior to delivering treatment. They also can't keep such uninsured patients waiting, even if their problem isn't an emergency. Nor can they discharge them until they're fully stabilized and have safe transportation.

More, hospitals must post EMTALA signs in Spanish and English. The law isn't limited to ERs. Hospitals must accept illegals at any facility on campus including outpatient clinics and doctor's offices located within 250 yards of the main buildings.

Hospitals end up treating uninsured illegals for the sniffles and other nonurgent care, and pass that exorbitant cost on to the insured, the Government Accountability Office has found. Resulting overcrowding leads to delays in "care for patients with true emergency needs."

This unfunded federal mandate has placed a heavy and unfair financial burden on more than 1,500 hospitals across the country, according to HHS data, costing billions in unpaid bills by some estimates.

Many eat losses and eventually go out of business like they're doing in droves in California, which has seen 85 hospital closures in the last decade. An additional 55 facilities have shut down ERs. The state ranks last in the country in access to emergency care and last in ERs per capita, making it woefully unprepared to respond to a major earthquake or terror attack.

Border hospitals are the hardest-hit. By law, they have to treat even illegals injured while crossing the border. Each year, hundreds of them pour into the ER at El Centro Regional Medical Center near San Diego with fractures sustained while climbing the fence or eluding border patrols in high-speed car chases. Others suffer from multiple organ failures from dehydration.

Many abuse the system with encouragement from groups like Maldef and La Raza, which have spread the word about EMTALA. In Texas, hospitals are flooded with walk-in mothers in labor showing up in the ER to have their anchor babies.

Some 80% of the births at Houston's Ben Taub General Hospital and Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital are to illegal immigrants. In Fort Worth, it's about 70%.

At a recent town hall meeting, President Obama shot down tort reform because, as he argued, Texas has tort reform and one of its cities McAllen still has "the highest health care costs in the country."

McAllen also is one of the most heavily trafficked border areas in the country, a little fact Obama failed to mention. The border patrol nabs 75,000 illegals there a year. They're the ones caught; others flood McAllen hospitals.

Overutilization of ER services by illegals is crippling the area's major hospital system, including McAllen Medical Center and Edinburg Regional Medical Center. The South Texas Health System eats $140 million a year in free care, and 60%-70% of those unpaid costs are in the ER.

Some 40% of the babies born at McAllen Medical last year were to illegals. That's nearly 2,400 babies who were given instant citizenship. And their mothers instantly qualified for U.S. welfare. Many of them, McAllen Medical CEO Joe Riley says, were "mothers about to give birth that walk up to the hospital still wet from swimming across the river and in actual labor."

Actually, Miami boasts the highest medical costs in the country. McAllen is No. 2. Like McAllen, Miami hospitals are overrun by illegal Hispanic immigrants.

Thanks to EMTALA, one hospital near Miami was forced to eat $1.5 million in unreimbursed care for an illegal alien from Guatemala. After three years of treatment, Martin Memorial Medical Center paid $30,000 to charter a jet to take Luis Jimenez to a medical facility in his home country. His family in turn sued the hospital.

Any health care overhaul should start with rewriting EMTALA. No one wants to refuse emergency care to indigent Mexicans who truly need it. But when you consider that they wire an average of $300 a month in remittances back to Mexico, that money could go a long way toward purchasing medical insurance.

At a minimum, the government could impose a fee on remittances to Mexico, and use the revenues to offset costs that border hospitals incur for the care of illegal immigrants.

http://capoliticalnews.com/blog_post/show/2955_

Illegal alien suspect held in Brookline rape case

BROOKLINE - It was “grunt detective work’’ that quickly brought down the two suspects in a rape in the popular Coolidge Corner neighborhood, police said.

Brookline police arrested Ismael Martinez, 26, of Waltham late Friday night, the second suspect in the early-morning attack Tuesday on a 30-year-old Brookline woman. He joined Jose Arita, 25, who was arrested Thursday.

The victim, returning from Logan International Airport, had been dropped off by taxi at the corner of Harvard and Beacon streets at about 2:20. As she was walking with her luggage, two men hit her in the head from behind, choked her, and put her into a red pickup truck parked on a side street. The truck sped off, but was caught on police surveillance cameras.

The two suspects face charges of assault with intent to rape, aggravated rape, and kidnapping. Martinez faces an added charge of misleading police during a criminal investigation, but authorities did not elaborate on that charge.

During a news conference yesterday afternoon, Brookline police Lieutenant Philip Harrington praised the work of detectives who worked without rest since the attack, he said.

“It was through old-fashioned good detective work and follow-up investigation that led to the arrest of Mr. Martinez,’’ Harrington said. “It’s an example of the quality of officers we have in this department. . . . The whole department gave a great effort to solving this case.’’

Harrington said that the suspects knew each other and worked together as freelance plasterers. Both suspects are believed to be living in the United States illegally - Arita from Guatemala and Martinez from Mexico. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is involved in the cases of both suspects, police said.

Arita pleaded not guilty in Brookline District Court and is being held on $150,000 bail. Martinez is being held without bail pending his arraignment tomorrow.

The Globe’s policy is not to name victims of sexual assault, and police did not release her name.

The attack stunned Brookline, which traditionally has very low rates of violent crime, according to FBI statistics. Tuesday’s attack was the first rape of 2009 in Brookline. There were eight reported rapes in Brookline last year, up from two reported cases in 2007. There hasn’t been a murder in Brookline since 2006.

“I felt completely safe; I felt fine walking around here,’’ resident Alison Brayton, 22, told the Globe last week. “Not anymore.’’

Harrington said he hopes residents will feel safer now that both suspects are in custody.

“With this second arrest, I hope we’ve allayed people’s fears,’’ Harrington said. “I hope that there’s a sigh of relief.’’

Still, Harrington urges people to be aware of their surroundings, especially at night - a message his department plans to amplify next month when thousands of college students return.

Source - http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/08/23/2d_suspect_held_in_brookline_rape_case/

Cops nab second illegal alien suspect in Brookline rape

Second man sought in Coolidge Corner kidnapping

One of two men accused of kidnapping and taking turns raping a Brookline woman after a cab dropped her off Tuesday night in Coolidge Corner was arrested yesterday at his home.

Jose Arita, 25, of Brighton, was charged with assault with intent to rape, kidnapping and rape after a two-day investigation involving Boston cops.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20090821cops_nab_suspect_in_brookline_rape_second_man_sought_in_coolidge_corner_kidnapping/srvc=home&position=4

Video - ILLEGAL ALIEN THUGS THAT MURDERED 15 Y/O GIRL IDENTIFIED

Video - Liberty Candidate Debra Medina for Governor of Texas

STATE OF EMERGENCY:: Illegal aliens burden UMC

Hospital not reimbursed for illegal immigrants' dialysis treatments

Tethered to the dialysis machine behind her reclining chair by two tubes attached to a catheter in her chest, Marta Berrera wearily stares at nothing in particular as blood flows out of, and then back into, her body.

Every four or five days, she shows up at University Medical Center's emergency room, her failing kidneys requiring that her waste be filtered and excess fluid be removed through artificial means.

"I am so thankful to this hospital for doing this for someone who is not a citizen," she said Thursday, an interpreter translating her Spanish as she choked back tears. "Without this help, I would die and my four children would be without a mother."

Wrapped up in Berrera's expression of gratitude is a dilemma that confounds the health care professionals at the only publicly supported hospital in Las Vegas.

"Our people are really torn," said Brian Brannman, UMC's chief operating officer. "We want to take care of people who are ill. We're proud that we can save lives. But our employees are also worried about the survival of UMC. They know that the appetite of taxpayers for helping undocumented immigrants is limited."

Since April, UMC has been spending about $2 million per month providing emergency dialysis services to 80 illegal immigrants, Brannman said.

He projects that these services at UMC could run more than $24 million in the current fiscal year.

In each of the five prior years, the hospital provided the same emergency services to half as many illegal immigrants for a little more than $1 million per month.

Brannman said the hospital receives no reimbursement from federal, state or local sources to provide this life-saving treatment for people who have entered the country illegally.

But under federal law, any patient who shows up at an emergency department requesting an examination or treatment for a medical condition must be given an appropriate medical screening to determine whether there is an emergency. If there is, treatment must be provided.

"When we're projecting a budget deficit of $70 million for fiscal year 2010, you can see that $24 million in dialysis treatment that's not reimbursed is an awfully big chunk," Brannman said.

UMC health care professionals say discussion of how to reform the nation's health care system must include how to shore up taxpayer-supported hospitals, strained to the breaking point by following the law to care for those who are breaking it.

Health care costs for illegal immigrants, a hot-button issue in the current debate, vary widely because of the difficulty in obtaining accurate information on illegal immigrants. But all estimates run into the billions of dollars.

UMC staffers contend more efforts also must be made to persuade foreign nationals to head home for care.

And, they say, unless there is meaningful immigration reform, taxpayers can expect to pay more to wait longer for their own emergency services.

"There's no question that these illegals who come for dialysis treatment at emergency rooms back everything up," said Dr. Dale Carrison, UMC's head of emergency services, adding that most require treatment two or three times a week. "And there's also no question that they need help. But this isn't how emergency rooms were meant to be used."

MEDICARE COVERS U.S. CITIZENS

Carrison said the four dialysis chairs on the fifth floor of UMC were designed for hospital patients who suddenly become ill, and not for those in need of chronic care.

U.S. citizens with end stage renal disease automatically qualify for Medicare to cover dialysis costs.

Illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicare, however.

As a result, patients who have neither insurance nor Medicare to pay for dialysis are almost exclusively illegal immigrants, a distinction that allows hospital officials to estimate costs for their care.

"What they figured out is that if they come to emergency rooms, we'll dialyze them if they're in bad enough shape," Carrison said of illegal immigrants.

Using emergency rooms this way is costly and dangerous, he said, adding that a full screening with lab tests is done each time an individual comes to the emergency room.

"Unless it's a real emergency, we don't do dialysis on them, so their body is in bad shape," Carrison said.

Brannman said it isn't unusual for an illegal immigrant to wait for eight hours for treatment, only to be told their condition isn't bad enough for treatment that day.

"Then they'll come back a day or two later really sick," he said.

Carrison said dialysis patients covered by Medicare have their own doctors who are aware of their conditions, so expensive tests need not be done repeatedly.

According to Brannman, the cost at UMC can run from $11,000 to $18,000 per visit for an emergency dialysis patient.

The high costs reflect these tests and that the patients' health might have worsened to the point that they need more than just dialysis to stabilize their condition.

The June issue of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases reported on a Texas study that found that the cost of dialysis care was 3.7 times greater when done through the emergency room than through the usual doctor-guided treatment program at a dialysis center.

"The federal government kicked the can down the road on the immigration issue and gave the bill to us," Brannman said. "This is a federal policy failure that is driving huge health care costs to our citizens."

The monthly cost for emergency dialysis for illegal immigrants has nearly doubled since April. This can be attributed not only to the loss of jobs, but also to the ending of a long-term contract with an outside dialysis provider to cover about 20 chronic dialysis cases for illegal immigrants at about $2 million a year, Brannman said.

The contract was terminated because of a budget shortfall, and the $2 million was shifted to other services, including upgrading the hospital's neonatal unit.

But it now appears the decision backfired, as the 20 chronic care patients became more expensive emergency care patients.

"We had to make some hard choices, and we didn't think the county should be renewing a contract to help a small number of undocumented, anyway," Brannman said. "We didn't think we should be in the business of making contracts for illegal immigrants. And you also have to remember these undocumented people don't have to just come to UMC for emergency dialysis care. Remember under federal law, any emergency department has to take them."

Attempts Friday to find out what other hospitals in the Las Vegas Valley handle emergency dialysis for illegal immigrants were unsuccessful.

Carrison said he has found illegal immigrants discharged from other hospitals who were told to come to UMC for their emergency dialysis care.

Brannman said a UMC social worker told him that one of the illegal immigrants reported that at another hospital he was threatened with being turned over to immigration authorities if he didn't go to UMC for treatment.

Repeated attempts to get Medicaid payments from the state to pay for emergency dialysis for illegal immigrants have been unsuccessful, Brannman said.

Yet Ben Kieckhefer, a spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said Friday the state will pay for "true emergencies."

"It appears that it comes down to what the definition of an emergency is," Brannman said. "Our doctors obviously believe that these people would die without dialysis."

GRATEFUL FOR CARE

Brannman said he has also asked for help from Mexican authorities.

Mariano Leuma Gas, the consul for Mexico in Las Vegas, said he has been working with UMC to try to send some illegal immigrants back to their home country for care.

Brannman said Gas has helped UMC on other health care issues, finding funding to send Mexican patients from Las Vegas to Mexican hospitals. But he said they have been unsuccessful in persuading dialysis patients to go home for care.

"You have to remember that I can't make them go back, but families often want them to," Gas said. "The problem is the economy is so bad in Mexico now, too, and there often is a long wait for dialysis. But I think we can work out this problem. We need to talk more."

All three individuals in the UMC dialysis section interviewed Thursday admitted they were without insurance and in the country illegally.

The 34-year-old Barrera, who came to the United States 16 years ago, said she has been receiving dialysis treatment through UMC since December 2007.

Her condition worsened so dramatically recently that she had to spend a costly eight days in the hospital.

Another patient in the dialysis room Thursday, 47-year-old Felipe De Arcos Rodriguez, said he once had to be hospitalized for two months when he waited too long to get dialysis.

The cost of care over that period would be at least in the tens of thousands of dollars, with the final cost dependent on the lifesaving measures that had to be undertaken.

Rodriguez said he has been receiving dialysis for six years and seven months. His arms are full of bumps where tubes were inserted for the procedures and scar tissues formed.

Because he is not an American citizen, he is not eligible for a transplant.

"I've been in a coma four times and UMC saved me," the Mexican immigrant said. "I am very grateful to UMC. It is a great place. I try to pay the hospital $50 a month."

Emergency dialysis patient Ricardo Valladares, who came to the United States from El Salvador, said the fact that UMC gives treatment to non-citizens shows that the hospital has a big heart.

"They are special people," he said.

Berrera prays that UMC will never stop giving dialysis help to everybody.

"My husband is in jail now," she said, stressing that other family members were watching her children while she was in the hospital.

"I need to keep fighting to get better. With God and UMC, I will. And then I will be able to help my children."

http://www.lvrj.com/news/53343302.html

Illegal aliens don’t deserve full benefits

KINGSTON — I see what is going on around us with regard to health care, jobs, war, illegal aliens and college tuition.

Our government is about to give illegal aliens free health care, a free college education, free citizenship and jobs.

My grandson has enlisted into the U.S. Marines. He has selected infantry and wants to do something to help his country.

When he gets out of the Marines, will he get something more than free health care, free college education, a good job?

He is going to war, and he is putting his life on the line.

What have illegal aliens done to deserve the same benefits?

http://www.patriotledger.com/opinions/letters_to_the_editor/x956616525/YOUR-OPINION-Illegal-aliens-don-t-deserve-full-benefits

Video - The cost of illegal alien anchor babies