Haitian health care two step
Helping out the earthquake stricken Haitians has just gotten more confusing.
A recent New York Times article may only be describing the tip of an iceberg. The problem being that there are hundreds of critically injured Haitians filling up American hospital beds with no guarantee of who is going to pay for all this care. Florida's Governor has asked the Feds outright about it. In the midst of all this state and federal inquiry, all military flights transporting the Haitians stateside has come to a screeching halt.
The same NY Times article, bringing in politics, reported that The National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), if activated, would cover the costs of caring for patients regardless of their legal status.
So what is the problem? Wasn't NDMS already activated?
In this separate article, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is said to have activated the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
Haitians once here, can be given humanitarian parole via the U S Citizenship and Immigration Services, which then qualifies them for Medicaid. Just like with the backroom devised, stick it to us healthcare plan, it looks like the feds are dumping the cost onto the States.
This predicament for States can only get more perplexing.
Hmmm: government healthcare in a nutshell.