American Medical Association voted to study repatriation of uninsured immigrants
11 11 08 - 14:18
Doctors Study Repatriation of Uninsured
The American Medical Association’s House of Delegates voted Monday to undertake a study of the repatriation of uninsured immigrant patients by hospitals, a practice that has been examined by The New York Times in two recent reports.
The national doctors’ group, meeting in Orlando, Fla., was prompted to address the matter by the California Medical Association, which voted in October to oppose the forced repatriation of patients. The California doctors acted in response to a recent Times article about a Florida hospital’s deportation of a brain-injured Guatemalan.
But the national organization’s delegates, while expressing concerns about repatriations and what they called the “inappropriate discharge of patients,” declined to take a stand before examining in detail the legal, financial and medical issues involved.
“It’s too complex a subject for us to come up with a one- or two-sentence reaction,” Dr. Joseph Annis, an American Medical Association trustee, said. “There are conflicting concerns here. On the one hand, patients shouldn’t be dumped. On the other, hospitals need to be solvent. After all, if the care of these patients were actually paid for by some entity, these repatriations would not be happening and this would not be an issue.”
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