MANAGED CARE September 2001. ©MediMedia USA
Southern and western states struggling with mushrooming illegal immigrant populations are quietly finding ways to provide health services to them, sometimes in the face of federal laws that prohibit such activity. The Christian Science Monitor reports that this development is part of a larger trend to grant certain public benefits to undocumented aliens.
U.S. law keeps states from giving more than emergency care to illegal aliens, but some states want to go further. Arizona voters, for instance, passed a measure expanding health care for the working poor. But to get federal money to help enact the program, Phoenix had to do some horse trading with Washington — and one of its concessions was to stop funding nonemergency care for undocumented workers.