County to Redouble Efforts to Stop Medi-Cal Abuses : Treatment: Health director says he’ll seek federal aid to prevent foreign visitors from manipulating the system.

Los Angeles County Health Director Robert Gates on Wednesday said his department is redoubling its efforts to obtain federal help to stop the flow of foreign visitors who manipulate state and county health programs for the poor in order to get free medical treatment.

“At our level we have exhausted all the options and I don’t think there is much the state can do either,” Gates said.

His remarks came in reaction to articles this week in The Times detailing the financial drain of illegal immigration on publicly financed health programs and the legal loopholes exploited by foreign visitors who are neither poor nor residents of California--key requirements for eligibility.

Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for the poor, will spend about $880 million on medical care for illegal immigrants this year, nearly triple what it paid out four years ago. Foreign visitors who lie about their assets and residence are siphoning millions more in public health dollars.

Also Wednesday, Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana called for stricter federal enforcement of U.S. borders and a “radical revision” of state and federal laws requiring public hospitals to treat illegal immigrants and seriously ill foreign visitors without providing sufficient federal funds to carry out these obligations.

Los Angeles County’s extensive network of public hospitals and health centers face a $100-million operating deficit this year, a financial crisis that has forced staff and pay cuts and may result in the closure of 24 of the county’s 45 clinics. A quarter of the patients at these facilities are illegal immigrants.

Also citing reports in The Times, Gov. Pete Wilson’s spokesman, Dan Schnur, repeated the governor’s call for repeal of the 1986 federal law that requires states to pay for emergency health care for illegal immigrants. Removal of the mandate would close off an avenue of fraud by foreign visitors, Schnur said, because some of these patients pose as illegal immigrants in order to claim this benefit.

The Hospital Council of Southern California, however, strongly disagreed. Spokesman David Langness said Wilson’s proposal would deal a catastrophic financial blow to hospitals, which operate under state and federal laws that compel treatment of all seriously ill patients, regardless of nationality, legal status or ability to pay.

“The state has got to stop passing this problem off to the counties, the hospitals and the federal government,” Langness said.

Schnur also noted Wilson’s support for SB 1131, a bill introduced by state Sen. Tim Leslie (R-Carnelian Bay), which would make it a crime to coach patients in how to lie on Medi-Cal applications.

Hospital workers quoted in The Times said some foreign visitors appeared well-tutored in how to evade questions about financial assets and nationality in order to qualify for free care. Leslie’s bill, which has passed the state Senate, is headed for a vote by the Assembly next week.