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institution and for a variety of reasons:
1. John F. Kennedy died there in 1963
2. Lee Harvey Oswald died there shortly after
3. Jack Ruby-who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, died there a few years
later...by coincidence
On the flip side, Parkland is also home to the second busiest maternity
ward in the country with almost 16,000 new babies arriving each year.
(That's almost 44 per day---every day!)
A recent patient survey indicated that 70 percent of the women who gave
birth at Parkland in the first three months of 2006 were illegal
immigrants, that's 11,200 anchor babies born every year just in Dallas.
According to the article, the hospital spent $70.7 million delivering
15,938 babies in 2004 but managed to end up with almost $8 million
dollars in surplus funding. Medicaid kicked in $34.5 million, Dallas
County taxpayers kicked in $31.3 million and the feds tossed in another
$9.5 million.
The average patient in Parkland 's maternity wards is 25 years old,
married and giving birth to her second child. She is also an illegal
immigrant. By law, pregnant women cannot be denied medical care based on
their immigration status or ability to pay.
OK, fine That doesn't mean they should receive better care than
everyday, middle-class American citizens. But at Parkland Hospital, they do.
Parkland Memorial Hospital has nine prenatal clinics. NINE!!
The Dallas Morning News article followed a Hispanic woman who was a
patient at one of the clinics and pregnant with her third child---her
previous two were also born at Parkland. Her first two deliveries were
free and the Mexican native was grateful because it would have cost $200
to have them in Mexico. This time, the hospital wants her to pay $10 per
visit and $100 for the delivery but she was unsure if she could come up
with the money. Not that it matters, the hospital won't turn her away.
(I wonder why they even bother asking at this point.)
"How long has this been going on? What are the long-term affects?"
Well, another subject of the article was born at Parkland in 1986
shortly after her mother entered the U.S. illegally---now she is having
her own child there as well. (That's right, she's technically a U.S.
citizen.) These women receive free prenatal care including medication,
nutrition, birthing classes and child care classes. They also get
freebies such as car seats, bottles, diapers and formula, etc.
Most of these things are available to American citizens as well but only
for low-income applicants and even then, the red tape involved is almost
insurmountable.
Because these women are illegal immigrants, they do not have to provide
any sort of legitimate identification---no proof of income. An American
citizen would have to provide a social security number which would
reveal their annual income---an illegal immigrant need only claim to be
poor and the hospital must take them at their word.
"My husband is a pilot for the United States Navy (yes, he fought in Iraq )
and while the health care is good, we Navy wives don't get any of these
perks! Car seats? Diapers? Not so much. So my question is this:
Does our public medical care system treat illegal immigrants better than
American citizens?" Yes it does!
As I mentioned, the care I have received is perfectly adequate but it's
bare bones, meat and potato medical care---not top of line.
Their (the illegals) medical care is free---simply because they are
illegal immigrants? Once again, there is no way to verify their income.
Parkland Hospital offers indigent care to Dallas County residents who
earn less than $40,000 per year. (They also have to prove that they did
not refuse health coverage at their current job. Yeah, the 'free' care
is not so easy for Americans.)
There are about 140 patients who received roughly $4 million dollars
for un-reimbursed medical care. As it turns out, they did not qualify for
free treatment because they resided outside of Dallas County. So the
hospital is going to sue them! Illegals get it all free! But U.S citizens
who live outside of Dallas County get sued! How stupid is this?
As if that isn't annoying enough, the illegal immigrant patients are
actually complaining about hospital staff not speaking Spanish. In this
AP story, the author speaks with a woman who is upset that she had to
translate comments from the hospital staff into Spanish for her husband.
The doctor was trying to explain the situation to the family and the
mother was forced to translate for her husband who only spoke Spanish.
This was apparently a great injustice to her.
In an attempt to create a Spanish-speaking staff, Parkland Hospital is
now providing incentives in the form of extra pay for applicants who
speak Spanish. Additionally, medical students at the University of Texas
Southwestern for which Parkland Hospital is the training facility will
now have a Spanish language requirement added to their already
jammed-packed curriculum. No other school in the country boasts such a
ridiculous multi-semester (multicultural) requirement.
In the meantime, I have to end my column here. I have to go buy a car
seat.
(Sorry for the length, but this needs wide circulation----particularly
to our "employees" in Congress.
If you want to verify accuracy:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/parkland.asp
sKIP
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