Deal Reached on Dialysis for Immigrants

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

ATLANTA — Twenty-one illegal immigrants will continue to receive regular dialysis at no cost for three years under an agreement disclosed Friday by Atlanta’s public hospital, Grady Memorial, and the world’s largest dialysis provider, Fresenius Medical Care.

The deal solves an impasse created when a previous one-year contract between Grady and Fresenius expired on Aug. 31 and the dialysis provider refused to serve patients who showed up for their regular thrice-a-week treatments.

The patients spent the past week seeking care in Atlanta-area emergency rooms, including Grady’s, which are required by federal law to screen and treat those at risk of impairment or death.

In some instances, ailing patients were turned away by emergency room doctors who determined that their elevated potassium levels and fluid retention were not yet severe enough to justify emergency treatment. Each renal patient’s need for dialysis is different, but those unable to artificially clean the toxic substances from their blood can die in as little as two weeks.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/health/10grady.html

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Meanwhile, conservatives will argue that this will mean 21 fewer dialyses for US citizens...

[customerserviceguy]

1. Are all US citizens being given the dialysis treatments they need?

And how do you answer the question, "Doesn't this action provide a further magnet to illegal immigration?"

[bahrbearian]

2. all that US citezens have to do to get treatment is give up their life savings and live in boxes

[alp227]

3. have you also heard of stories about people deliberately committing crime

to get free health care in the corrections system?

[bahrbearian]

4. !st you have to go live in a box, then you commit the crime.

[totodeinhere]

5. Not true. Anyone who is on kidney dialysis is qualified to go on Medicare.

Medicare will cover 80% of their dialysis costs. And Medicare is not means tested so they won't lose their assets. By anyone I mean US citizens. It probably also covers non citizen legal residents but I'm not sure about that. The problem arises with people who due to their immigration status are not eligible for Medicare.

[bahrbearian]

6. So what do you scarfice to get Medicare? all your assets?

[pampango]

7. Of course not. It's Medicare (like for senior citizens), not Medicaid. n/t

[Honeycombe8]

9. Hmmm. Not sure about that. Medicare is applicable, if you are under age, only if...

only if you have been declared disabled, I think.

Otherwise, no insurance company would ever have to pay for dialysis, right? Which is not the case.

My sister, who has been declared disabled by Social Security Administration, gets treatment for a variety of things through Medicaid, because she's dirt poor. Medicare paid for rehab after her stroke initially, only until Medicaid could take over. Medicare does not pay for any of her other treatments, as long as Medicaid covers them, until she reaches 65 years old. Then she would qualify for Medicare.

So maybe Medicare only kicks in if nothing else applies? If you have no insurance AND Medicaid won't pay?

It's complicated.

[totodeinhere]

10. No, anyone who is on dialysis automatically qualifies for Medicare regardless of age.

Google it if you don't believe me.

[Honeycombe8]

11. So my ins. co. won't have to pay for that, if I need it? Hmmm.

That sounds odd. Why would my taxpayer dollars pay for others' dialysis, if they have health ins. that would pay? That doesn't sound right.

[totodeinhere]

12. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just stating the facts.

http://www.medicare.gov/publications/pubs/pdf/10128.pdf

[No Elephants]

20. Respectully, telling someone to google for support for a statement that you made is not appropriate.

Now, you don't have to google to support your statement, but telling someone else to the research is not a way to support your statement.

On the substance, as far as I know, Medicare is very much tied to Social Security (aka, OASDI). In turn, OASDI is very much to tied, first of all, to the number of calendar quarters a worker contributed to OASDI, and next to either age, disability or being the minor child or spouse of a deceased worker who was eligible. Bear in mind, not all workers contribute to OASDI.

After a certain age, I'm not sure which age, but, if I am correct, it would be in the 70s, a person MAY be eligible for Social Security, without regard to calendar quarters, but I am not at all sure of that.

All else is Medicaid (which may be tied to SSI, which is different from OASDI). Eligibility for both Medicaid and SSI is very much means tested.

[loyalsister]

16. I think you have it backwards

People on Medicare are responsible for copays and some things that are not covered. If a person on Medicare is poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, it fills in some of the gaps for what Medicare does not cover.
For example, in order for someone who lives on $700\month to get their drugs via Medicare part D, Medicaid will pay for the donut hole, copays, etc.

[astral]

18. But ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS are covered 100%, not 80% like us citizens.

[No Elephants]

21. It's more about poverty than about being a legal immigrant or a legal immigrant.

The issue is not whether illegal immigrants get better treatment than legal immigrants, but whether all persons in similar circumstances are treated similarly.

[No Elephants]

19. I'm not sure that anyone who needs dialysis automatically qualified for Medicare.

[CreekDog]

15. that's incorrect because this particular disease qualifies you for Medicare

one thing I don't understand about some posters is how they are so strident about arguments that are patently wrong.

[No Elephants]

22. Please see Reply 20.

[CreekDog]

14. Yes most are eligible for Medicare if they have end stage kidney failure

yours was a rhetorical question --but rhetorical questions can be wrong.

[No Elephants]

23. "Most" means you understand that people who need dialysis are not automatically eligible.

Whether that understanding is correct or not, I can't say. It would be up to people making the claim to prove what they are saying, if they so choose. Either way, it's not for me to prove what they are claiming.

[LanternWaste]

26. I imagine my answer to that specific query would be

"Doesn't this action provide a further magnet to illegal immigration?"

I imagine my answer to that specific query would be: "the lives and health of people are more important to me than imaginary red and blue lines on a map; thus rendering the question irrelevant"

But that's just my answer, as any biases against people due to nationalism I may yet have is tempered by my conscious.

[KamaAina]

27. How exactly is a dialysis patient supposed to cross over through the desert?

FAIL.

[Honeycombe8]

8. Why wasn't a deal reached with the immigrants' countries of origin, to take them back in order..

to take them back and provide care? The transition could've been smooth, so no care would've been missed.

If they were from Mexico, which is what I assume but don't know, Mexico has a universal health care system. So the people wouldn't have to have money for the treatment.

[No Elephants]

24. Mexico has a system of universal for Mexican citizens, not for others who are in Mexico,

I know that does not affect your assumption that the undocumented immigrants who need dialysis are native born citizens of Mexico, but I just wanted to keep it accurate, so as not to mislead anyone who might be thinking of moving to Mexico for health care.

Many from Canada and the US live in Mexico, especially retirees who have found the weather and/or prices there easier on retirees.

They pay for their own health care, although I have read that the cost of paying for your own health care is much more reasonable there.

[harun]

13. Compassion

[ZombieHorde]

17. Stories like this give me hope for humanity.

I absolutely love seeing people place compassion for our fellow humans over make-believe constructs, like nations.

[No Elephants]

25. About time.