A Republican-backed measure that might have pressured Texas hospitals to report annually what number of undocumented immigrants they deal with didn’t make it via the Home Tuesday night time following a profitable parliamentary problem from a Democratic lawmaker.
Final 12 months, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered hospitals to start asking and counting sufferers who had been lawfully in the US, following the same transfer by Florida.
Late Tuesday, the Texas Home was set to vote on state Rep. Mike Olcott’s Home Invoice 2587, which might have codified Abbott’s order into regulation, leading to an annual report back to the Texas Legislature on the estimated value to hospitals for caring for immigrants who will not be lawfully residing in the US.
However state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, efficiently blocked the invoice, by elevating a “level of order” as a result of the caption describing the invoice didn’t replicate what the invoice was about.
The caption describes it as “referring to an annual report on the monetary affect on hospitals for offering sure uncompensated care.” However the invoice particularly requires hospitals to start asking sufferers frequently, if they’re lawfully in the US. Hospitals would then calculate that value to deal with that affected person and submit these totals to Texas Well being and Human Companies, which might produce the annual report.
Upon overview, the purpose of order was authorized and the invoice is now technically lifeless. Nonetheless, Olcott might resurrect it as an modification to a different measure. The Senate doesn’t have the same invoice.
Olcott didn’t instantly reply to questions on his subsequent transfer for the measure.
Martinez Fischer mentioned Tuesday night time that the invoice was one other pointless anti-immigrant invoice. “It forces immigrants into the shadows and turns our hospitals into border checkpoints,” he mentioned in a press release to The Texas Tribune.
Final 12 months, Abbott grew to become the second governor within the nation to order hospitals receiving Medicaid funding for a head rely of sufferers they handled who weren’t lawfully in the US. Final month, the state reported that Texas hospitals spent practically $122 million for the month of November on sufferers who weren’t lawfully in the US.
This text initially appeared in The Texas Tribune, a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and interesting Texans on state politics and coverage.
