After doing some research on this issue I ran across these Dallas Morning News articles:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/080810dnmetbabies.2be9a7e.html
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/061206dnmetmoms.d9b9669.html
and this politifact.com article:
I discovered that a major claim made by the authors about Parkland Hospital in Dallas is false according to Parkland Hospital. I know that the Dallas Morning News could care less but I did send this email to poltifact.com:
Dear Sirs,
In the aforementioned article you quoted the Dallas Morning News article by SHERRY JACOBSON as follows:
“To offer a concrete example, we found a 2006 article from the Dallas Morning News about Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, a safety-net facility for poor residents. As many of 70 percent of the roughly 16,000 women giving birth annually at the hospital were immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally, according to one survey cited in the story.”
You called this “ample evidence” and a “concrete example”. Actually, Parkland Hospital stated this about the Dallas Morning News article:
“Misinformation about Parkland’s patient population
Numerous circulated reports state erroneously that a “patient survey” conducted in 2006 revealed that 70 percent of women who give birth at Parkland are “illegal immigrants.” The data in question, reported in an article in The Dallas Morning News, was a calculation during a three-month period of labor and delivery patients who did not qualify for Medicaid. Some of these patients lacked immigration documentation and some did not.”
Please see the entire press release here:
http://www.parklandhospital.com/pdf/GetTheFacts.pdf
I have had dealings with the Dallas Morning News and a little research into SHERRY JACOBSON might prove interesting so in the future I would highly recommend you really look hard at anything you get from the these folks.
Does this information tilt your Truth-O-Meter?
I was hoping they might care about the accuracy of their facts. In any case, it does appear that Republican rhetoric has once again bumped up against that nasty pest – the facts.