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Thread: Healthcare for uninsured U.S. citizens vs. for illegal aliens

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    Default Healthcare for uninsured U.S. citizens vs. for illegal aliens

    I was still half asleep when I heard this, but either the host or guest on a radio talk show said illegal aliens will usually receive free healthcare here in the U.S. But uninsured U.S. citizens are often expected to pay rather steep prices when they receive healthcare. I don't know if the following applies only to the Los Angeles area, the city itself, or on a state or national level-but I guess the healthcare facilities are not permitted to determine legal residence status.. It probably only applies to the city of Los Angeles. Then the host of this show stated the politicians will say, "we don't have the data" to study this problem. When they are the people who prevented the collection of that data in the first place.

    Just recently, IIRC, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that anyone covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act could file a lawsuit against a state government. Some hospiitals and other healthcare providers have been going after uninsured patients in court. While I am not an attorney, if one such patient was covered under the ADA, he or she could probably file a lawsuit, possibly class-action, re: the differrence in how uninsured U.S. citizens are treated vs. how illegal aliens are treated (here speaking financially, rather than availability of healthcare). Perhaps even request punitive financial damages from the state government.

    There are other questions here, such as how health insurance should be provided, if it is provided at all(i.e., should it be divorced from being part of an employment benefits package, etc.), and other issues, but here I'm primarily interested in the different financial treatment of different patients in the healthcare system.


    PhaedrusZ

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    Default Re: Healthcare for uninsured U.S. citizens vs. for illegal aliens

    In California at least, this is a non-issue as a result of the California Supreme court striking down Proposition 187 as approved by state voters in 1994. Arizona is attempting to make their own recently passed Proposition 200 stick., however the same advocacy groups are strongly challenging it.

    "Proposition 187: Prohibiting Services for Illegal Immigrants (1994)

    California’s Proposition 187 required all applicants for public assistance to disclose their citizenship and required agencies to report any illegal immigrants to the State Attorney General. It prohibited public social services to those who cannot establish their status as a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident, or an ``alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time.''* Under the proposition, only such persons could receive publicly-funded health services other than emergency care as required by federal law . . . .'' All other cases were to be directed in writing to ``either obtain legal status or leave the United States'' and be reported to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Proposition 187 also limited attendance at public schools to U.S. citizens and to aliens lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence or otherwise authorized to be here. The new statute also required school districts to verify the status of pupils and their parents and to report suspected violations to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

    Passed on November 8, 1994, by 58.8% of the California electorate after heavy lobbying in its favor by Governor Pete Wilson and California Attorney General Dan Lungren, passage of the proposition led to denunciation by Mexico's President Salinas and President-Elect Zedillo, and to violent demonstrations in Mexico City. Proposition 187 was subsequently enjoined from enforcement on November 27, 1995, by Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer of the Federal District Court of California. A second 1997 ruling by Judge Pfaelzer also voided Proposition 187, this time on the basis of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (the Welfare Reform Act of 1996), which overhauled federal welfare benefits, denying them to illegal immigrants.

    The case was appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and and was expected eventually to reach the Supreme Court, which was expected to follow Plyler v. Dow, a 1982 case which ruled that illegal immigrants were entitled to state-funded education and other social services. It was argued that Proposition 187 would be found to violate the Supremacy Clause, by intruding on federal immigration law, and to violate the Fourteenth Amendment by effectively ordering the deportation of California residents without hearings or other due process of law and, second, by denying free education to undocumented children, the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection clause was violated. However, passage of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act established a preemptive federal role, upheld by Judge Pfaelzer's 1997 decision, making the appeal moot. "

    Thus in effect the 9th Circus Court has established that poor people are entitled to free services regardless of citizenship, that US/California taxpayers are required to pay for these free services, and if it comes down to a choice of paying higher taxes or affording private health care for those who are working class but who earn more than the 'poverty level' necessary to receive free services themselves, the taxes come first. After all, if an uninsured medical expense results in bankruptcy, at that point the working class person will indeed be below the 'poverty level' and eligible for free services themselves in the future. Of course if the working class person had never bothered to work in the first place, his health would probably be better in this instance since he could have sought free medical treatment immediately, and his financial condition would have been the same too.

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    Default Re: Healthcare for uninsured U.S. citizens vs. for illegal aliens

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie
    In California at least, this is a non-issue as a result of the California Supreme court striking down Proposition 187 as approved by state voters in 1994. Arizona is attempting to make their own recently passed Proposition 200 stick., however the same advocacy groups are strongly challenging it...Thus in effect the 9th Circus Court has established that poor people are entitled to free services regardless of citizenship, that US/California taxpayers are required to pay for these free services...
    Personally, I have no objection to illegal aliens/undocumented workers receiving free healthcare...so long as all U.S. citizens receive "free" healthcare as well! Free being in quotes since there is no such thing as a "free lunch." This will eventually bankrupt the healthcare system, but as we're following that path anyway, what the hey? Just yesterday, I read in the paper UCLA Medical Center will be in the red for the current fiscal year.

    As to Arizona and Proposition 200, please see the thread Deogol started re: Arizona being threatened with legal action by Mexico over Propostition 200.

    PhaedrusZ

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    Default Re: Healthcare for uninsured U.S. citizens vs. for illegal aliens

    Melonie, are you aware that the uninsured cost taxpayers and health providers more than providing free health care does? It's true! When people have no insurance, they treat the emergency room as a general doctor's call.
    Because emergency rooms are forbidden to turn anyone away.

    Now take away medicare, take away employer provided health insurance, medicaid, cut health clinic funding and many other health programs and what happens? You end up paying more in the long run.

    I love how conservative policies are implemented under the belief that they will solve problems and save money... but in the long run create more problems are cost more money. This is almost always the case.

    I wonder when America will wake up?


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    Default Re: Healthcare for uninsured U.S. citizens vs. for illegal aliens

    Quote Originally Posted by devilsadvocate667
    I wonder when America will wake up?
    When the hospitals start closing.

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    Default Re: Healthcare for uninsured U.S. citizens vs. for illegal aliens

    All emergency rooms are required to do is stabilize someone... after that people are on their
    own as far as 'free healthcare' goes. BTW, who's 'taking away employer provided health care'?
    Employers usually charge their employers for the premium anyway (but at group rates) so
    healthcare is hardly free even to the employee whether it is 'provided' or not. In any case,
    an individual is free to buy insurance for themself. And when did medicare get 'taken away'?

    Hospitals are closing and doctors (especially OBGYNs) are getting out due to high malpractice
    costs (due to a lack of tort reform).

    Back to illegals: In the news recently was the stat that illegals cost California alone $10
    Billion a year (not counting what it costs the federal government). It seems to me that
    they could spend $1 Billion to patrol their border with Mexico and thus save more billions
    every year. Of course, Texas and Arizona and New Mexico would need to do the same.

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    Default Re: Healthcare for uninsured U.S. citizens vs. for illegal aliens

    Quote Originally Posted by devilsadvocate667
    Melonie, are you aware that the uninsured cost taxpayers and health providers more than providing free health care does? It's true! When people have no insurance, they treat the emergency room as a general doctor's call.
    Because emergency rooms are forbidden to turn anyone away...
    In the last year, we've had either six or eight hospitals close in Los Angeles County. While uncertain, I believe two of these were emergency rooms. It is not impossible that 100% of the emergency rooms in the county will close in the next several years. What then? It will not matter if you're in the country legally or illegally. There will not be any treatment available.

    For that matter, we've never had a free market in healthcare anyway. The supply of doctors was kept low, due to the intervention of the American Medical Association in contolling the number of medical school seats available to students, but it is very expensive to educate a doctor. And now, of course, we have tort attorneys filing lawsuits against doctors. Sometimes, these lawsuits should be filed, but I'd guess at least 50% of them probably should not be filed!

    PhaedrusZ

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    Default Re: Healthcare for uninsured U.S. citizens vs. for illegal aliens

    Quote Originally Posted by Deogol
    When the hospitals start closing.
    Tucson, AZ had to shut off funding for trauma centers. Now we've only got one in all of southern AZ.



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    Default Re: Healthcare for uninsured U.S. citizens vs. for illegal aliens

    In the last year, we've had either six or eight hospitals close in Los Angeles County. While uncertain, I believe two of these were emergency rooms. It is not impossible that 100% of the emergency rooms in the county will close in the next several years. What then? It will not matter if you're in the country legally or illegally. There will not be any treatment available.
    Well, this will be the point where a EuroLand style two tier health care system gets instituted - a first tier of tax money funded gov't run facilities providing rationed mediocre health care at "no cost" to the patients, and a second tier of privately funded privately run facilities providing quality health care for those who can afford to pay for treatment (on top of paying the increased taxes to fund the first tier system). Thus the poor get free but mediocre health care, the rich get good but expensive health care, and the middle class winds up with worse health care than they have now.

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