fascinating. anyone who s been to an emergency room is very familiar, of course, with being asked almost immediately for your insurance card and i.d., right? in arizona lawmakers want the hospital staff to also at that moment check for a patient s citizenship before they treat them. as you might imagine this is pretty controversial. keith yaskin of kfaz has more on this fiery debate. reporter: opponents of this bill say it will create a health care disaster. and a police state, trying to catch people while they re sick and they ask, who s going to decide what s an emergency? i think it would probably stop some people for coming in for health care and it would also create a moral and ethical dilemma for all health care institutions and providers. reporter: opponents of the bill held signs outside the state capitol, those opponents included a retired doctor and nurses. we are medical professionals, not immigration agents.
no act of legislature will compel us so violate our professional ethics li blurring that line. the arizona health care and hospital association strongly opposes the bill and released this statement: this legislation would require hospitals to confirm the citizenship status of every patient being admitted for non-eskwrerpblgent care, and would result in a delayed hospital admissions process for all patients, including u.s. citizens. in addition, all hospital patients would be required to carry documentation, acceptable for citizenship verification. placing an undue burden on patients and possibly jeopardizing their care. twice, we called the bill sponsors but they were busy or unavailable. martha: all right. well, thanks to keith yaskin of ksab in phoenix. hospitals are iran are on the front page of arizona s immigration battle. to read about it on the very front page of foxnews.com/latino, that s the big story on the cover of our website there.