For three days, the staff of an Orlando medical clinic encouraged a woman with abdominal pain who called the triage line to go to the hospital. She resisted, scared of a 2023 Florida law that required hospitals to ask whether a patient was in the U.S. with legal permission.

The clinic had worked hard to explain the limits of the law, which was part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ sweeping package of tighter immigration policies. The clinic posted signs and counseled patients: They could decline to answer the question and still receive care. Individual, identifying information wouldn’t be reported to the state.

“We tried to explain this again and again and again, but the fear was real,” Grace Medical Home CEO Stephanie Garris said, adding the woman finally did go to an emergency room for treatment.

  • Riskable@programming.dev
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    21 days ago

    Conservatives: This is how the zombie apocalypse starts… With one person refusing to let medical professionals know about their problem.

    I’d use a very real scenario of immigrants and “merely visiting” foreigners who get sick spreading any given disease (e.g. How do you think we ended up with Zika in Florida?) but I know conservatives aren’t interested in reality. Even JD Vance knows that in order to get conservatives attention you need to promote fiction.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
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    21 days ago

    People are not dumb.

    Just because the law doesn’t require an answer now doesn’t mean it won’t. Immigration statuses last decades, so people have to make decisions that protect themselves through multiple administrations and changing political trends.What will the governor’s office do with this information? What about the next governor? They could station agents outside hospitals with higher rates of non-citizen patients. They could change the laws protecting patient confidentiality for non-citizens, and access those records (HIPPA is a law, not a civil right). Remember when we believed that abortion care and contraception was safe forever?

    These people are fixated on punishing immigrants and if we don’t stop them now, they will just keep pushing the line further and further.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      21 days ago

      I’ve know since the Bush admin that my name would be on a list someday. This just makes it a little bit closer. I’m a cis white male, fwiw, and I’m still anticipating the day when my thoughts make me an enemy.

  • Ragdoll X@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    Remember that former Guantanamo inmates have accused DeSantis of aiding in and enjoying torture. Cruelty is the point. DeSantis and others like him simply take pleasure in making as many immigrants as possible suffer, whether they are legal or not.

  • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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    21 days ago

    Update: IDK wtf happened. I thought I was in the Trump golf course assassination attempt post in this community. I had even read the summary in the post before commenting. Maybe it’s an error with my client, maybe it’s user error. Anyway, I’m sorry for the confusion.

    I know that this is beside the point but it probably wasn’t an AK47. AK47s are kinda rare. It was probably a Kalashnikov style riffle. https://youtube.com/watch?v=L_PR1OdS754