From WATE (Ch.6 – Knoxville):

When illegal immigrants have babies in Tennessee, federal law requires doctors to treat them because labor is considered an emergency.

The law also requires TennCare to reimburse hospitals for the emergency care they provide to people here illegally who would qualify for Medicaid as a U.S. citizen.

Dr. Heather Moss, 35, works as an OBGYN. She has a private practice and also delivers babies twice a month at St. Mary’s Hospital.

Moss is dealing with a problem of her own. Her individual health insurance plan doesn’t cover maternity expenses because she is not married.

“I feel like I’m getting discriminated against because I choose to be single. Maybe I don’t want to get married and maybe I want to have a baby.”

Moss is even more frustrated because some of her tax money is paying for illegal immigrants to give birth and she is delivering their babies.

6 News found TennCare pays for approximately 60 immigrants a month. Most of those are for mothers in labor. That adds up to a cost of about $1.7 million, an average of nearly $15 million a year.

“That $15 million could have been used to help legally established working poor in the state of Tennessee.”

She pays $450 a month for insurance. Switching plans or changing insurance companies would cost her several hundred dollars more each month.

She says the cost of an uncomplicated delivery costs about $10,000 without insurance coverage.

“I’m frustrated that someone can come here illegally and basically benefit from our welfare system. A system that was set up to help the poor citizens of the state of Tennessee.”

Moss plans to contact legislators in Washington, asking them to change the law.

Good luck on that! I don’t think Gov. Bredesen will be doing anything about that any time soon. I’d also bet that the number is a very low estimate.

Technorati Tags: Immigration, TennCare, Tennessee, Medical

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