Washington, DC - Congressman Ed Towns (D-Brooklyn) announced his

opposition today to proposed rules by the Bush Administration that would

require hospitals to request and record information about a patient's

immigration status.  The rule is proposed as part of the

Administration's plan to implement the new Medicare law which authorized

$1 billion to compensate health care providers for the uncompensated

costs associated with providing emergency health care services to

illegal immigrants.

 "By requiring health professionals to request and document

information about patients' citizenship status, our doctors, nurses and

all other health professional will be diverted from their primary

mission of delivering quality health care and turned into enforcers of

our nation's immigration laws," said Towns. "That is not in the best

interest of our patients or our hospitals."

 Towns, along with member of the Congressional Hispanic caucus,

are urging the Administration to support other proposals that would

calculate hospital payments without directly asking patients about their

immigration status.

 There is also concern that the proposed rules do not contain

explicit measures to protect patients' confidentiality.  Opponents of

the proposed rule say that hospitals and health care providers should be

barred from sharing personal or identifying information about

undocumented patients with any outside entity or agency or using patient

information for any purpose other than to provide needed care.

 "If undocumented immigrants are not assured that their

information will be kept confidential, they will avoid seeking critical

medical care for fear of being turned into immigration authorities,"

said Towns.  "This could place the patient and possibly the community at

risk."

 Towns says that the intention of the Medicare law was to provide

additional funding to help hospitals not to track illegal immigrants. 

He says he will continue to push the Administration to alter its

proposed rules.

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