Under a new program announced yesterday, the government will pay hospitals $1 billion to help foot the costs of providing emergency care for illegal immigrants. While researchers have disagreed on the impact of uninsured immigrant patients on the healthcare system as a whole, many hospitals have said the issue is a serious problem impacting their financial well-being. Importantly, under the proposed guidelines for the program hospitals will not be required to ask patients about their immigration status. The largest allocations this year go to Texas, California and Arizona.

- see this story [1] from The New York Times