What do you think about provisions in some health overhaul measures that would prohibit illegal immigrants from purchasing insurance on proposed exchanges?
The biggest risk is the financial failure of [border] health care institutions. If illegal immigrants are not going to be covered under a national health plan, then there must be a mechanism for reimbursement for the care of those patients. If that doesn’t happen, then all of a sudden border hospitals and providers have to take a 35 percent cut in their gross income and they’re not going to make it. As it is, the border area already has a much higher percentage of Medicaid patients than other areas in the country. Providers and hospitals are strapped with the bare minimum of financial resources because of the reimbursement mechanism that exists. I would venture to bet that one-fourth to one-third of the hospitals along the border would close and you would see an exodus of providers in a system that already has very, very poor ratio of patients to providers. Right now, as far as I know, there isn’t a discussion on how to make up for the losses that would be incurred by border institutio
