> WASHINGTON - If the 24 U.S. counties along the Mexican border were
> combined into the nation's 51st state, it would be among the poorest
> and least healthy in the United States, according to lawmakers and
> health experts who spoke at a border health conference on Thursday.

> Topics: Disease, Bio Hazards, Border Security, Health Care, Costs,
> Taxes, illegal immigration, closed hospitals, TB

> 6/23/2006
> By SAMANTHA LEVINE
> Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

> The conditions along the border are something "we should be ashamed
> of," said Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease
> Control and Prevention.

> The conference, convened by the Texas Medical Association and Texas
> lawmakers, painted a dismal picture of health conditions in the
> southern reaches of the four states that border Mexico, with rates of
> tuberculosis, hepatitis, obesity, hypertension, diabetes and infectious
> disease that far outpace the rest of the country.

> Compounding the problems are increasing shortages of doctors and
> nurses, a situation made worse by inadequate federal reimbur{*filter*}t for
> health care providers who care for the high numbers of underinsured or
> uninsured individuals along the border, the experts said.

> "The result ... is that communities along the border suffer from health
> problems common to developing nations," said Don Hawkins, vice
> president of the National Association of Community Health Centers. "It
> is a crisis."

> Nearly 20 percent of residents along the border, a partly agricultural
> region with many immigrants, live in poverty, compared with an average
> of 13 percent across the United States, he said.

> More than a third of border residents lack health insurance, more than
> twice the U.S. average, and more than 60 percent of the counties are
> federally designated as having a serious shortage of doctors.

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