Board Votes to Curb Free Medical Care for Foreigners : Health services: Supervisors approve a plan to prevent visitors from other countries from having non-emergency operations at taxpayer expense.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has voted to stop foreigners from receiving free non-emergency medical care at county health facilities.

The vote was intended to curb a disturbing trend in which foreign nationals, many with substantial wealth and assets, come to Los Angeles to have expensive medical operations performed at taxpayer expense.

Under the action approved by the supervisors Tuesday, visitors would have to show their passports and appropriate visas when requesting medical care. Non-immigrant foreign nationals would be informed that they are not eligible for non-emergency care. Previously, virtually anyone professing poverty could qualify for some level of free medical care, including elective surgeries that cost tens of thousands of dollars.

The board acted in response to a story in The Times last year that detailed how thousands of foreign visitors improperly obtain free medical care by manipulating health programs intended for illegal immigrants and other poor California residents. About half of all people caught falsifying their Medi-Cal applications in Southern California are visitors from other countries, officials reported.

“This action should stop that kind of abuse,” said Robert C. Gates, director of the Department of Health Services.

Even with the new curbs, the county’s health care facilities would continue to provide emergency medical care to all, as required by federal law.

Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana voted against the measure, saying it did not go far enough. The two supervisors wanted the Health Department to erect signs in several languages saying foreignners are not entitled to elective or other non-emergency medical care.

Gates, however, warned that many prospective patients, including those with dangerous communicable diseases, might be intimidated by the warnings and leave before being properly screened by medical personnel.

There are no comprehensive statistics on the size of the problem of foreigners seeking publicly paid medical care, or how much of a drain it is on taxpayer-financed facilities. But doctors at one county hospital said such foreign visitors account for 20% of their monthly heart surgery caseload.

The Times found that some of the patients arrived for treatment at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center wearing expensive jewelry and driving fancy cars, only to claim poverty when presented with the hospital bill.