What are the other financial impacts at UMC?

Now that the Review-Journal’s Paul Harasim has reported that 80 illegal immigrants with kidney problems will cost University Medical Center $2 million in dialysis treatment this year, and the impact of the illegals on the taxpayer-funded county hospital is substantial, it’s a good time to start asking other tough questions.

Here’s one: When is someone going to go after the business owners who employed those illegal immigrants, but left the rest of us to pay for their health care?

And one more for now: What is the cost of providing free health care to all the tourists who use UMC and other hospitals and skip out on the bill?

I think it’s a great idea that UMC is focusing on those who use the hospital and either can’t or don’t pay.

But, in fairness, it’s important to paint the big picture. And the big picture includes an acknowledgment that the society that benefited from cheap immigrant labor is partly responsible when that cheap immigrant labor winds up at the county hospital with a medical issue.