health care for illegal immigrants

You are full of macaroni.

First of all you show a lack of understanding about who is uninsured. Uninsured household median income is around $59,000 (Consumer Reports) compared to $48,200 nationally (Census Bureau). It's sick people in small groups without protection who health insurers single out and rate up until they drop like flies. 75% of Americans who filed bankruptcies due to medical bills had health insurance when they were diagnosed, but health insurers are not in business to take care of people who get sick and actually need health care. Instead they are into charging as much as possible while delivering as little as possible (which is why we're all paying too much and getting too little in return). They pull the safety net facade out from under anyone and everyone who gets sick if at all possible (even Superman Christopher Reeves). That's the name of their game. About half the dollar amount we spend but they divert away from health care would cover everyone for eveything, yet still save about $300 billion collectively compared to what we're spending now to keep profit-driven health insurance middlemen in control of the game. My next post will deal with your illegal alien problem.

I believe the immigration problem has grown much worse because the Bush administration believes cheap labor is a good thing, so has turned and given a blind wink-wink with a nod to our neighbors at our southern border. That said, I also believe we should care for anyone who is here, no matter who they are, for the following reasons: 1. Everybody agrees preventative medicine is not only the most cost-effective but also the most humane. Do we want to prevent the progression of diabetes or cut legs off after untreated people go blind and need kidney dialysis? Estimates are that we could save an additional $50 billion each year simply by treating diabetes before it cripples. Do we prefer to stop asthma in its tracks, or allow it to progress to fully debilitating illness? Remove small lumps while they are benign, or pay for the chemotherapy, radiation and subsequent nursing home and hospice care? Etc. 2. How long do we want our store clerks, wait persons, hair dressers, small business owners and workers spreading around their nagging coughs and other nasty, communicable diseases because they simply will not, for some inexplicable reason, go to see a doctor? Uninsured people can be contagious. 3. One of these uninsured people night be taking up our spots in an E.R. with their darned preventable emergencies just when we need them most. 4. We are paying for the uninsured one way or the other. Do we want to pay more like we do now, or less like we should and could be if everyone were in one protective pool with one set of fair and consistent rules? Again, the fact that paying less also happens to be more humane would be icing on our health care cake. 5. If we chipped in and made sure the bills were paid, no one would have to sue anyone over who had to pay the bills, saving billions of dollars more in unnecessary litigation. 6. Having one out of evey six Americans without access to health care makes us far more vulnerable to any bio-terrorism attack by either man or nature. 7. If we took back the piece of our health care pie that profit-driven health insurers (who really provide no valuable public service) now consume, we could afford to do all of this and more. Not fixing this mess is bankrupting our people, businesses and national economy. Not fixing it makes individuals unable to compete in job markets, small businesses unable to compete with larger ones, and large businesse unable to compete globally. Have you ever wondered why no other civilized nation emulates, or wants to emulate, our health care system? Have you ever wondered why the richest nation on Earth is the only one that "can't afford" health care for its people? Our leaders have sworn an oath to protect the lives of the American people from all enemies foreign and domestic. Do you think the 18,000 (minimum) Americans dieing from lack of health insurance every year (and their loved ones) care whether it was Capitalist Greed or Al Qaeda that killed them?

Actually it is part of the reason we ARE interested in universal care, because it means: everyone is covered! The illegal immigrants you are so worried about are already getting covered here, but the cost comes in the back door through increased county medical budgets and writeoffs by the hospitals. We DO tend to cover most people when they show up at the ER, we just don't always collect for it. Simply put universal care is less expensive and insures better public health than the absurd health profiteering racket we have today.

"Universal Care Done Wrong" is mandating health insurance purchase (unsustainable and immoral); "Universal Care Done Right" is eliminating the health insurer middleman and utilizing efficiencies of scale by uniting everyone into one protective pool with comprehensive access to quality care including total freedom of choice among independent providers (saves money, morality and adds transparency). This is an issue of national security: protecting the lives of our people against all enemies both foreign and domestic.

Immigrant DO NOT exist!! we are all immigrants. One day we will finally realize that we are all HUMAN and this is planet EARTH.

I think that people are more concerned over how it will be run and less about who will actually receive the care. Our government doesn't have a great track record for taking care of big problems (the war, Katrina, etc). It's scary to think of what they could do with people's health in their hands.

amanda, the difference is that the war and Katrina were both "acute" events and I would agree that the Bush administration has a woeful track record, mostly because they don't want to spend ANY money. When it comes to "chronic" situations the government does much better: Social Security and Medicare are good examples of the latter; there is still room for improvement and I think the election this fall will shift our direction

"Our government doesn't have a great track record for taking care of big problems (the war, Katrina, etc). It's scary to think of what they could do with people's health in their hands"...

Amanda is using the last seven years to condemn our entire 232-year history? I hope and pray the last seven (going on eight) are a horrible aberration that will be put to an end shortly.

Nothing is scarier or worse than the havoc profit-driven health insurers are wreaking on our people, our country, our economy, and our humanity. The damage they are doing needs to be put to an end as well.