Bill requiring Texas hospitals to report the citizenship status of patients killed in House

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A Republican-backed measure that would have forced Texas hospitals to report each year how many undocumented immigrants they treat failed to make it through the House Tuesday night following a successful parliamentary challenge from a Democratic lawmaker.

Last year, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered hospitals to begin asking and counting patients who were lawfully in the United States, following a similar move by Florida.

Late Tuesday, the Texas House was set to vote on state Rep. Mike Olcott’s House Bill 2587, which would have codified Abbott’s order into law, resulting in an annual report to the Texas Legislature on the estimated cost to hospitals for caring for immigrants who are not lawfully residing in the United States.

But state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, successfully blocked the bill, by raising a “point of order” because the caption describing the bill did not reflect what the bill was about.

The caption describes it as “relating to an annual report on the financial impact on hospitals for providing certain uncompensated care.” But the bill specifically requires hospitals to begin asking patients on a regular basis, if they are lawfully in the United States. Hospitals would then calculate that cost to treat that patient and submit those totals to Texas Health and Human Services, which would produce the annual report.

Upon review, the point of order was approved and the bill is now technically dead. However, Olcott could resurrect it as an amendment to another measure. The Senate does not have a similar bill.

Olcott did not immediately respond to questions about his next move for the measure.

Martinez Fischer said Tuesday night that the bill was another unnecessary anti-immigrant bill. “It forces immigrants into the shadows and turns our hospitals into border checkpoints,” he said in a statement to The Texas Tribune.

Last year, Abbott became the second governor in the nation to order hospitals receiving Medicaid funding for a head count of patients they treated who were not lawfully in the United States. Last month, the state reported that Texas hospitals spent nearly $122 million for the month of November on patients who were not lawfully in the United States.

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