On Friday, Democrats moved one step closer to giving free health insurance to the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens when they successfully defeated a Republican-backed amendment, offered by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack Obama.
The House Ways and Means Committee nixed the Heller amendment by a 26-to-15 vote along straight party lines, and followed this action by passing the 1,018-page bill early Friday morning by a 23-to-18 margin, with three Democrats voting against the plan. link
I’m sure covering illegals is exactly the kind of reform “citizens” are looking for.
It’s not hard to imagine a rationed health care system where elderly United States citizens, who have been forced into a public system, are denied coverage, while non-citizens’ needs are provided for at no charge. Somehow, I don’t think this is the kind of reform most people expect.
Dick Morris suggested recently that giving illegals free health care will lead to a huge influx of new illegals, eager to take advantage of health care benefits not offered in their home countries. I think he makes an excellent point.
One of the ironies of the proposed legislation is that it would fine American citizens who opt not to purchase insurance coverage, but would exempt illegals from such fines. This is presumably due to the fact that they are not supposed to participate in the program anyway.
I guess if you don’t want to participate in the forced public heath care system, you can simply renounce your citizenship, move to Mexico or Canada and sneak back across the border to avoid the fines.
Most uninsured illegals who need medical attention obtain it from hospital emergency rooms. And several states are already straining under the huge burden of paying for the health costs of illegal aliens.
According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in 2004 California’s estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care was $1.4 billion. Texas estimated its cost at $850 million annually, and Arizona at $400 million.
Perhaps denying all medical benefits to illegals, except for life and death emergency care, would go a long way to solving many of our heath care woes.
Illegal aliens threaten U.S. medical system
The increasing number of illegal aliens coming into the United States is forcing the closure of hospitals, spreading previously vanquished diseases and threatening to destroy America’s prized health-care system, says a report in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
In addition, the report says, “many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease.”
84 California hospitals are closing their doors as a direct result of the rising number of illegal aliens and their non-reimbursed tax on the system.
While politicians often mention there are 43 million without health insurance in this country, the report estimates that at least 25 percent of those are illegal immigrants. The figure could be as high as 50 percent.
The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons report includes a strong prescription for protecting the health of Americans:
* Closing America’s borders with fences, high-tech security devices and troops.
* Rescinding the U.S. citizenship of “anchor babies.”
* Punishing the aiding and abetting of illegal aliens as a crime.
* An end to amnesty programs. link
