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Chris Dodd & Bill Richardson: Health Care for Illegal Aliens
- Thread starter LT701
- Start date
Quote from Sparohok:
I agree, and this is a big problem, because emergency rooms an incredibly inefficient way to provide medical care.
One of the big advantages of national health care systems is that they can emphasize preventative and maintenance care (which is cheap) over acute care (which is expensive). It's quite possible that providing free, basic public health coverage to illegal immigrants would be cheaper in the long run than providing them free acute care as we do today.
I'm not saying free health care for illegal immigrants, or single payer health care for that matter, are necessarily good solutions. This is a hard problem and any approach has moral hazards and creates incentives for wasteful behavior. I'm just suggesting keeping an open mind to any solution that would move us away from providing basic care in the emergency room, which is astonishingly wasteful.
Sadly our president is blissfully unaware of this problem. "People have access to health care in America. After all, just go to an emergency room." George W. Bush, 7/10/2007. This approach to "universal health care" is directly responsible for us having the least cost effective health care system in the developed world.
Martin
I must disagree. Many of the illegal aliens in the emergency room are there due to work related injuries, and others due to pregancies, no amount of preventative care would alleviate such medical issues. ANd even if it is just basic health care, some America has to pay for it.
Having free health care only makes America more of a shit magnet than it already is. With current open borders and free health care America is now an emergency room and nursing home for the entire world, and perhaps the world's septic tank. I don't see millions flocking to any other nation for there free health care.
Quote from Sparohok:
OK, so please explain to me, where do you actually disagree with what I actually wrote?
Martin
Well, you wrote that a solution to having illegal aliens bankrupt our hospitals by using the least effective most expensive emergency rooms is to provide free, basic public health coverage to illegal immigrants.
I disagree with this, because in my opinion and based on the fact that about 10,000 illegals enter the US every night, for every illegal alien you give free basic public health coverage to right now, there will be many, many more ready to use the least effective most expensive emergency rooms tomorrow. I don't think the government would be able to give away free basic public health coverage fast enough.
But, even if such an idea worked, I'd still be opposed to it on the grounds that people who break the law (illegal aliens) should not be given free health care AT THE EXPENSE OF THE TAX PAYER all while the industries that import the illegal aliens and exploit their cheap labor and gouge us taxpayers for their health care, their welfare and retirement, and at the market for their products.
Thanks for the clarification. First of all, I did write:
"I'm not saying free health care for illegal immigrants, or single payer health care for that matter, are necessarily good solutions. This is a hard problem and any approach has moral hazards and creates incentives for wasteful behavior."
So I still don't think you've actually disagreed with me.
However there are some points where I disagree with you.
1) If free basic public health is cost effective (i.e. we save more in the emergency room than we pay in the clinic) then it doesn't matter how many illegals come or go, we're still saving money on every single one.
2) You seem to think that health care is a major incentive for illegal immigration but I don't think the facts support that. Mexicans, for example, come here for jobs; they can get more cost effective health care in Mexico. Mexico has a universal health care program already. If illegals could get across the border easily enough, they'd be crossing the other way to get their health care.
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-womexi164935437oct16,0,6421326.story?coll=ny-health-print
3) I know it's emotionally unsatisfying for taxpayers to pay for health care for noncitizens, but we do that already with emergency rooms. You are assuming that preventative care will cost more, whereas my whole point is that it is likely to be cheaper.
Martin
"I'm not saying free health care for illegal immigrants, or single payer health care for that matter, are necessarily good solutions. This is a hard problem and any approach has moral hazards and creates incentives for wasteful behavior."
So I still don't think you've actually disagreed with me.
However there are some points where I disagree with you.
1) If free basic public health is cost effective (i.e. we save more in the emergency room than we pay in the clinic) then it doesn't matter how many illegals come or go, we're still saving money on every single one.
2) You seem to think that health care is a major incentive for illegal immigration but I don't think the facts support that. Mexicans, for example, come here for jobs; they can get more cost effective health care in Mexico. Mexico has a universal health care program already. If illegals could get across the border easily enough, they'd be crossing the other way to get their health care.
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-womexi164935437oct16,0,6421326.story?coll=ny-health-print
3) I know it's emotionally unsatisfying for taxpayers to pay for health care for noncitizens, but we do that already with emergency rooms. You are assuming that preventative care will cost more, whereas my whole point is that it is likely to be cheaper.
Martin
Quote from Sparohok:
Thanks for the clarification. First of all, I did write:
"I'm not saying free health care for illegal immigrants, or single payer health care for that matter, are necessarily good solutions. This is a hard problem and any approach has moral hazards and creates incentives for wasteful behavior."
So I still don't think you've actually disagreed with me.
However there are some points where I disagree with you.
1) If free basic public health is cost effective (i.e. we save more in the emergency room than we pay in the clinic) then it doesn't matter how many illegals come or go, we're still saving money on every single one.
2) You seem to think that health care is a major incentive for illegal immigration but I don't think the facts support that. Mexicans, for example, come here for jobs; they can get more cost effective health care in Mexico. Mexico has a universal health care program already. If illegals could get across the border easily enough, they'd be crossing the other way to get their health care.
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-womexi164935437oct16,0,6421326.story?coll=ny-health-print
3) I know it's emotionally unsatisfying for taxpayers to pay for health care for noncitizens, but we do that already with emergency rooms. You are assuming that preventative care will cost more, whereas my whole point is that it is likely to be cheaper.
Martin
the problem with your position, is that it is a 'quasi/defacto' amnesty
do you have any concept of the cost of appeasing an invader???
strictly speaking, the only think they're entitled to is a humane deportation
that and nothing else
any extention of benefits beyond what they have is a legitimization of the crime they committed when they came here
they marched in the streets this year, and they tried to get an amnesty shoved down our throats
the only thing I support is ENFORCEMENT OF EXISTING LAW, PERIOD!!!!!
anyone who thinks there is any end to their demands (once concessions are made) is on the dope these people smuggled in here
OK, all they are <i>entitled</i> to is humane deportation. Strictly speaking, I agree.
But, in the real world, absolute attitudes like yours just don't work. Not because they are wrong, but because they are impractical.
Let's say you're in charge of US health care policy. Your policy is no health care for illegals. A Mexican lady 9 months pregnant shows up in an emergency room, no insurance, no green card. She hasn't had any prenatal care so there are complications. Do you:
a) Allow her & her baby to die on the waiting room floor
b) Admit her and provide life giving care
I don't think this country has the stomach for option A as a matter of national policy. I don't have the stomach for it, and I hope you don't either.
If you accept that we must provide emergency life sustaining care for everyone, I think it's undisputed that there is some level of free public health care which actually saves us money, by treating problems before they become acute. It might be a quite low level, rudimentary prenatal care, antibiotics, basic immunizations, etc. A lot of this stuff is already available for free, as it happens.
But your policy is nothing but deportation for illegals. That means we actually pay more caring for them in the emergency room, just because of your blinkered, stubborn insistence on nothing that could in your wildest flights of fancy be misinterpreted as "amnesty," whatever that means. It also, incidentally, causes a great deal of suffering, but it's only criminals who are suffering so of course we don't care.
In case you haven't noticed, I think that's just stupid.
Martin
But, in the real world, absolute attitudes like yours just don't work. Not because they are wrong, but because they are impractical.
Let's say you're in charge of US health care policy. Your policy is no health care for illegals. A Mexican lady 9 months pregnant shows up in an emergency room, no insurance, no green card. She hasn't had any prenatal care so there are complications. Do you:
a) Allow her & her baby to die on the waiting room floor
b) Admit her and provide life giving care
I don't think this country has the stomach for option A as a matter of national policy. I don't have the stomach for it, and I hope you don't either.
If you accept that we must provide emergency life sustaining care for everyone, I think it's undisputed that there is some level of free public health care which actually saves us money, by treating problems before they become acute. It might be a quite low level, rudimentary prenatal care, antibiotics, basic immunizations, etc. A lot of this stuff is already available for free, as it happens.
But your policy is nothing but deportation for illegals. That means we actually pay more caring for them in the emergency room, just because of your blinkered, stubborn insistence on nothing that could in your wildest flights of fancy be misinterpreted as "amnesty," whatever that means. It also, incidentally, causes a great deal of suffering, but it's only criminals who are suffering so of course we don't care.
In case you haven't noticed, I think that's just stupid.
Martin
I said previous to your post "any extention of benefits beyond what they have is a legitimization of the crime they committed when they came here
"
where do you get 'allow baby to die on waiting room floor' from that?!?!?!?!
this is an INVASION
were they to be amnestied, which is exactly what they are DEMANDING, they would have six times the political power of my state, and I would have to obey the laws they make
every increase of benefit, gives them power - they already have WAY WAY more power than any sane country would have given them
the concept of sovereignty is clearly over your head
also, what's (Mexico's) Carlos Slim's role in all of this, now that he's the richest man in the world?
What benefits will he confer to me, if I break into his club 'for a better life'? If we are now a North American commonwealth, how much of his wealth does he plan to share with me?
"Sorry Senior, it is a one way street" he would tell me
Why am I more responsible for his people, than he is?
He is arbitraging the difference in social benefits between the countries, exporting his poor, which keeps his taxes low. Then his phone system monopoly profits from the phone calls home and money wired back
The American middle class subsidizes the richest man in the world, who lives in Mexico
"
where do you get 'allow baby to die on waiting room floor' from that?!?!?!?!
this is an INVASION
were they to be amnestied, which is exactly what they are DEMANDING, they would have six times the political power of my state, and I would have to obey the laws they make
every increase of benefit, gives them power - they already have WAY WAY more power than any sane country would have given them
the concept of sovereignty is clearly over your head
also, what's (Mexico's) Carlos Slim's role in all of this, now that he's the richest man in the world?
What benefits will he confer to me, if I break into his club 'for a better life'? If we are now a North American commonwealth, how much of his wealth does he plan to share with me?
"Sorry Senior, it is a one way street" he would tell me
Why am I more responsible for his people, than he is?
He is arbitraging the difference in social benefits between the countries, exporting his poor, which keeps his taxes low. Then his phone system monopoly profits from the phone calls home and money wired back
The American middle class subsidizes the richest man in the world, who lives in Mexico
I don't see in your plan where illegals stop going to emergency rooms after a universal healthcare plan is enacted , a plan which you insist will not be available to them.
What am I missing?
Basically, it's a massive wealth redistribution scheme. At the end of the day, those that actually do pay income taxes will end up paying more in income taxes to fund universal healthcare to non-tax payers, and likely an additional premium for a private plan that actually provides decent healthcare.
Funny, suddenly Warren Buffet's secretary springs to mind ...
The Democrats literally want to fire millions of american workers, and replaced them with bureaucrats.
What am I missing?
Basically, it's a massive wealth redistribution scheme. At the end of the day, those that actually do pay income taxes will end up paying more in income taxes to fund universal healthcare to non-tax payers, and likely an additional premium for a private plan that actually provides decent healthcare.
Funny, suddenly Warren Buffet's secretary springs to mind ...
The Democrats literally want to fire millions of american workers, and replaced them with bureaucrats.