Oct. 2--Offering health insurance to legal immigrants, as the president proposes, will lead to more immigration and more strain on health providers, Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta said.

"Imagine how many will come to American if they can get free health care. It will break the American health care system," Barletta, noted for supporting measures to drive illegal immigrants from Hazleton, said when asked about the president's remarks.

President Barack Obama paired health care and immigration in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute on Sept. 16.

While saying illegal immigrants will not be covered under his plan, the president said he strongly supported health insurance coverage for legal immigrants, who currently must wait five years for coverage under federal health insurance such as Medicaid.

Obama also suggested providing a way for illegal immigrants to gain legal status.

"If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all," the president said.

Federal law currently requires hospitals to provide emergency care for anyone, regardless of immigration status, Michelle Mittelstadt, spokeswoman for the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., wrote in an e-mail.

Barletta said illegal immigrants, therefore, use emergency rooms for "anything from a hangnail to a heart attack." Providing care to the uninsured hurts the finances of hospitals and can push the burden of payment onto taxpayers through higher prices for their insurance, he said.

Hazleton General Hospital doesn't ask about immigration status when a patient needs care, its chief executive officer said.

"We're here to take care of everyone, especially in the emergency room. We're going to make sure they get great care," said CEO Jim Edwards.

The Greater Hazleton Health Alliance that includes Hazleton General provided $4,916,000 in uncompensated care last year.

Edwards said the president and Congress might make changes so the hospital would receive compensation for some of the care it now provides for free.

From what he has read, however, the reimbursement for charity care might come from reducing payments that doctors and hospitals get for treating other patients.

"It doesn't really solve the problems," Edwards said. "There have to be new monies available to pay for the care."

Congress and the president worked on health care reform all summer, but haven't settled on a plan. Immigration bills probably won't come before Congress this year.

On Sept. 10 when Obama told a joint session of Congress that he wouldn't subsidize care for illegal immigrants, U.S. Joseph Wilson, R-S.C., yelled: "You lie."

While the House rebuked Wilson for how he behaved, CBS News Correspondent Declan McCullogh concluded that Wilson had a point. Although the Democratic reform bill doesn't specifically provide care to illegal immigrants, the Democrats twice voted against requiring people to verify their immigration status before obtaining health coverage through the plan, McCullogh wrote on his blog.

Whether the federal government will provide a health insurance plan to compete with private insurers remains unsettled. A Senate panel voted against a government option on Tuesday, but House bills retain the option.

While estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the United States vary from 12 million that Obama used to a figure of 20 million that Barletta quoted, the pace of immigration slackened recently.

Foreign-born residents, including naturalized citizens, declined to 12.5 percent from 12.6 of the total American population last year, the New York Post reported on Sept. 26. It was the first drop in decades, reflecting a slowdown in immigration and an uptick in people leaving the country. The article cited the recession, job losses and border enforcement as possible reasons for the change.