Clinic, ER treat most illegal immigrants in Eagle Co.

EAGLE COUNTY, Colorado — On most days, the Eagle Care Clinic in Edwards is packed.

The clinic serves the uninsured and underinsured of the county, and the patients are predominately Latino, so much so that the entire staff speaks Spanish, said clinic manager Beth Reilly.

But ask how many of those patients are legal immigrants, and Reilly said she doesn’t know — they don’t ask, and there is no way to keep count.

For many illegal immigrants, the only sources of health care in the county are the emergency room and the Eagle Care Clinic, Vail Valley Medical Center’s indigent care facility.

The Eagle Care Clinic doesn’t ask about its patients’ immigration statuses, Reilly said, and it is impossible to guess at how many are illegal immigrants.

“Most of those people would be self-pay, so there’s no insurance information,” she said. “They can get a whole range of services here, but the bills could still be significant.”

For the most part, the local governments are not allowed to provide most health services to illegal immigrants, said County Finance Director John Lewis.

Under a 2006 Colorado law, residents must show a form of ID, sign an affidavit saying they are legal residents, and have their status verified by an online database to receive services from taxpayer-funded programs.

That includes most health care benefits and excludes illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid benefits. But there are some benefits that hospitals and governments must provide, as required by federal law.

The list includes immunizations, prenatal care, emergency care, and labor and delivery, said County Health and Human Services Director Jill Hunsaker.

For those services, the county and hospital do not ask for documentation, and other services only require proof of residence, she said.

The other option for illegal immigrants is the emergency room. The top emergency room ailments are ear infections, sore throats, respiratory infections and fevers, Hunsaker said.

That could mean that the uninsured are using the emergency room as a walk-in clinic, but the hospital does not know how many of those patients are illegal immigrants, she said.

When the patient cannot pay, the hospital and Eagle County split the costs, Lewis said.

Even then, it is difficult to say how much illegal immigrants are using those services.

“It’s so hard to quantify,” Hunsaker said. “I think they’re severely undercounted by the census.”


Staff Writer Melanie Wong can be reached at (970) 748-2928 or mwong@vaildaily.com.