For three days, the staff of an Orlando medical clinic encouraged a woman with abdominal pain who called the triage line to go to the hospital. She resisted, scared of a 2023 Florida law that required hospitals to ask whether a patient was in the U.S. with legal permission. The clinic had worked hard to explain the limits of the law. Patients could decline to answer the question and still receive care. Individual, identifying information wouldn't be reported to the state. Texas will be the next to try a similar law for hospitals enrolled in state health plans, Medicaid and the CHIP. It takes effect Nov. 1 — just before the end of a presidential election in which immigration is a key topic.
