These are extreme cases but there are thousands more which create a great deal of cost.
Please listen to this---if they are illegal then it is illegal to grant medical care---a very simple solution to a huge problem
Maybe someone should tell Obama, if we would stop paying for the medical services for illegal's our health care cost quite possibly would be more reasonable
MY RESPONSE:
This story has to be at least 5 or 6 years old and is used for propaganda purposes from the right wing, nativist, CHRISTIAN activists that are anti-immigration, prejudicial bigots. No one disputes the medical costs involved in treating the poor, non-insured sick in this country...legal or not, but medical costs, in general, are a separate subject best left to the single payer, universal coverage debate, another shameful aspect of "the greatest country in the world" bullshit.
This subject is really one having to do with illegals...and the economic misrepresentations surrounding them. The single, most identifiable problem at the heart of this dilemma is that non-documented workers in this country are not entitled to Medicaid. Period. What is not taken into consideration is the economic contribution that illegals make to the economy...which, ironically, benefits everyone save them. Florida enjoys a particular advantage derived from their illegals that isn't matched by any other state with the possible exception of California. Because of Florida's climate and their ability to multi-crop agricultural products, triple cropping in some cases, they maximize the benefits of low cost, no benefits, labor provided by illegals. The tomato growing industry, for example, which produces over 80% of the country's winter tomatoes, utilizes immigration labor as a practical indentured servant class.
Tomato pickers currently earn about 45 cents per 32# bucket of tomatoes...$0.014. In 1980, almost 30 years ago, they received 40 cents a pound. Chantra tells me tomatoes currently sell for about $4.00#. Bend over, pick 32 pounds of tomatoes, one by one, fill a bucket then carry it to a flat bed truck..voila! you've just made a quarter, a nickle and two pennies...do this 10 times and you can then buy a cup of coffee at a Starbucks (not including the TAX)!! While McDonald's and YUM Brands, bowing to activist pressure from labor and religious groups, are willing to pay an additional penny a pound to pickers, which would improve their lot considerably, Burger king and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange are not...in fact, the Growers Exchange is threatening fines against any grower that even shares information on wages and tonnage picked with anyone.
The point of this is that pickers in Florida, illegals the country over, are used and abused for financial gain but are castigated and denigrated when they are sick and not allowed to participate in Medicade...while most of their incomes are TAXED locally and their FICA payroll deductions forfeited and never used. Illegals that use phony and fake Social Security numbers effectively forfeit over $7,000,000,000 annually in FICA taxes...what happens to it? Could not a pro-rata share of this $7B that comes from each state be returned to the states for reimbursement of their medical and educational costs attributable to illegals?
The bottom line on illegals in this country, notwithstanding common morality and questions of societal ethics, is that they are an indispensable, positive part of a $14Trillion economy and should be medically taken care of for that reason alone...and since many would proclaim that we are a "Christian" nation, its about fucking time we acted like one instead of the greatest killing nation in the world.
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