One of the biggest complaints about health care reform coming from Republicans is that illegal immigrants might have access to government programs and “we’ll” have to pay for it. Well, that’s how they make the case, but after talking to some Republicans about it, that isn’t really the case at all. It has nothing to go with illegal immigrants signing up for some imagined government public option that may or may not ever exist. They don’t want illegal immigrants to have access to health care period.
I present a conversation I had this week with a Republican in my life.
“Illegals are going to sign up for the public option.”
“Every bill I have read is very specific about not allowing that to happen.”
“They’ll still do it.”
“I know you have signed up for government programs. Have you already forgotten about all the paperwork and all the forms of ID you needed to prove you were eligible?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t easy.”
“And you think an illegal immigrant would be able to get through the system without being found out?”
“OK, so maybe they won’t get the government insurance, but they’ll still be showing up in the emergency rooms and getting seen.”
That’s very typical of every conversation I have had on the subject with the Republicans I know, and the conversation always ends with some variation of “but they’ll still be showing up in emergency rooms and being seen.” Well, yes they will, and there really isn’t any way to stop that … unless we want to start checking ID at emergency rooms and tossing anyone out who can’t prove they are an American. Is that the sort of world they really want to live in? A place where people in need are tossed to the curb to remain sick and/or die?
I certainly don’t want to live in a world like that. We used to live in a world like that. It wasn’t that long ago that “patient dumping” was perfectly legal. If a person entered an emergency room and couldn’t prove they could pay for treatment (by having insurance or a working credit card), they’d be told to shuffle along to some other hospital. People suffered. People died. Laws were made to stop that from happening, and I don’t want us to go back to needing papers to prove we deserve treatment when we are in a moment of dire need. In my eyes, it is a moral imperative that people who are injured or direly ill be treated no matter who they are or where they come from … and whether or not they have insurance or can pay for treatment.
But a lot of die-hard Republicans seem to have no problem with the concept of turning people away at emergency rooms because they might not be American citizens. The overlap between the people I know who are Republicans and feel this way and the people I know who are self-proclaimed Christians is 100%. I find this odd, because it seems somewhat un-Christian to refuse to heal someone for any reason or to put the worth of one person’s life higher than another for any reason. I don’t recall Jesus checking insurance cards or ID’s before performing his miracles … or saying we should only love people who are just like us, for that matter.
NOTE: Interesting bit from the Wikipedia article linked above:
According to a 2007 analysis by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, uninsured adult low-income non-citizens were the least likely to use emergency rooms, with only about one in ten reporting a visit in the past year. Adult non-citizens most often rely on clinics and health centers, many of which are funded by charities as well as hospitals seeking to unburden their emergency rooms.
Illegal immigrants being in our country is an immigration problem, not a health care problem.
One Last Thing: Americans need health care, not health insurance. I am old enough to remember a time when many, if not most, people didn’t have health insurance. It used to not be the norm. It didn’t mean we didn’t go to the doctor when we needed or wanted to go. We did, and it was affordable enough that most people could access decent health care. Then having health insurance became the norm, and the cost of health care went up. Now if someone doesn’t have health insurance, they might as well forget trying to see doctors or get treatments, and even people with health insurance often can’t afford health care. I don’t see many other people noticing the connection between insurance becoming the norm and the rising cost of health care, but in my lifetime, I have certainly noticed it.
Any substantive argument against boils down to cost. However, in the last 11 months the Treasury and Fed have pumped more than 13 trillion into the gigabanks to replace the money stolen during the former regime, a sum everyone is responsible for, eventually. That amount dwarfs the cost of any of the proposed universal health care schemes. Because of their own complicity, the Democrats can’t point to this obvious fact. Nor can they pull the plug on the wars, which alone easily cost more than health care. The problem is really corruption and as long as the subject is kept taboo in our culture, we’ll be stuck with the same two parties which only pretend to oppose each other, much like attorneys arguing in court, then going out for drinks later in the day, courtesy of your dollar. Republicans use fear of totalitarianism and people of color, while Democrats use fear of poverty and horror stories of dead children to leverage their positions, but neither has any skin in the game, given that they’re rich, educated and already covered. All they’re doing now is jockeying for kickbacks, while pretending to argue the merits. As usual, too bad for us lumpen.
“…neither has any skin in the game, given that they’re rich, educated and already covered.”
Bingo. This is what I was trying to point out to various friends and family members before I stopped trying to enlighten them. Everyone on the TV talking smack –reporters, commentators, politicians, whoever– every last one of them is rich. Not wanting for health care or food or a house or anything at all. Rich. Necessities covered with money to spare. They aren’t average Americans, so just about all of them are completely clueless or self-serving. Or both.
“…two parties which only pretend to oppose each other, much like attorneys arguing in court, then going out for drinks later in the day…”
Which is why I tend not to pay attention to which party someone belongs to when voting. I just try to vote for the one who might screw me the least.