Will illegal immigrants NOW have to pay for healthcare?

I thought illegal immigrants are not allowed to participate in the new health plan?

I believe there are 28 million approximate illegal immigrants in the US. Health care reform, supposedly, isn’t about them, but about the millions of people who don’t have adequate healthcare.

Of course, certain groups will focus on illegal aliens and other non-citizens in order to scream that the sky is falling. Everyone should have adequate health care, but no one should subscribe to the theory that we need to run to the doctor every time we have a sniffle or a bump on our knee.

I was talking to a fellow from Canada, and he told me, and I quote, “If the United States has universal health care, I hope it isn’t based on the Canadian system. That system takes 33% right off the top of your paycheck, plus there are two separate taxes besides to pay for the plan. Canada runs it like a business, and people having babies are given everything they could possibly want, while older folks are pretty much ignored. The young are taxpayers, and fund the system, the old are no longer of any use.”

If you don’t like my answer, then take it up with the guy I met that lives is SK. That was his observation, not mine.

Personally, I believe everyone should have access to healthcare, but it should be a system that is reasonable. Illegal immigrants should NOT get it free.

@stratman37 WTF are you talking about? People usually complain they are taking jobs.

1. This “loophole” that you’re talking about applies to all people who enter any hospital that takes medicare/medicaid (not the ones that don’t), regardless of immigration status. Even you! For this, you can thank Ronald Reagan, that bleeding heart liberal who signed into law a provision stating that emergency rooms have to care for anyone that needs it.

2. The treatment received will still be billed to you. If you are indigent and move around a lot, perhaps you can escape the bill collectors. This is true, again, no matter your immigration status. It’s why so many people go bankrupt over medical care – because of how hard it is to “just walk away from it” and “get your care for free.”

3. We can also thank GWBush (another bleeding-heart liberal) for signing the law that states that the hospitals will be compensated something for the bills that people go bankrupt over and can’t pay. This is the “at taxpayer’s expense” part that you’re talking about.

4. Interestingly, illegals use less health care (it’s really a tiny fraction of a percent) because they tend to be fitter than most Americans.

5. Hopefully, this article from Politifact will reassure you that neither the Senate nor House versions of the health care reform bill will provide free health care for anyone, regardless of immigration status.

6. The House version of the bill would mandate that Illegals buy health insurance just like everybody else, but they would not be eligible for the subsidies that citizens could get. So in a way, the Illegals would be subsidizing the rest of us. The Senate bill bars Illegals entirely from obtaining coverage.

So, assuming some version of health care reform does get signed into law (hasn’t happened yet), it would seem that any compromise version of the House and Senate bills would not provide for free care for anyone. It’s unclear as to how the older laws about indigent care at hospitals would be affected.

@laureth I kind of think that it does not matter if the bill mandates illegals participate or not, because none of them are going to pay a premium anyway, unless they are working on top of the table with a false social security number, which does happen, but it happens less often than just working under the table.

There are only two things illegal immigrants pay for in America: taxes on a bottle of beer and Western Union to wire money back to their country. they pay no taxes and have no healthcare. its received free at emergency rooms. do you honestly believe that 20 million illegal immigrants will pay for their healthcare? no, they will not and you and i will have to pick up the tab. they run at the sight of the police or immigration authorities. i have experienced this many times over. i am for anyone coming to America for a better life. all i ask is that they be legal and not a burden on the good legal taxpayers in America.

Amen, brother!

@john65pennington Yes, so it stays the same no matter what the government does. They will get the same health care no matter what. It seems like a non-issue, just a political ploy to get the people riled up.

I have stopped so many illegal immigrants for traffic violations, that you would not believe. they have drivers license with someone elses name and photo on it. they cannot prove who they are. most of the papers they have are forged or illegal or someone else. they give you a name that fits 80% of the people in their country and they don’t have a clue as to how to drive a vehicle in the U.S. auto insurance? forget it. this is what the police face everyday with illegal immigrants. some could be wanted for murder, but how would we know???

@john65pennington The ones who use bad social security numbers to get work actually pay into the social security system and never directly get social security money back in the end.

@john65pennington – You certainly paint illegals with a broad brush. If they have a fake Social Security number in order to get a job, they pay taxes but will be unlikely to get any kind of tax return.

(Eh, @JLeslie got in before me.)

Also, if you’re upset at illegals with a common name that “fits 80% of the people in their country,” are you also upset at all the John Smiths and Dave Joneses in the U.S.?

It’s one thing to dislike illegals. It’s another to think all illegals are the same, or to be mad at them for things that are not facts.

@laureth :). My mother-in-law once said to me why are so many Americans name John, everyone is John. I looked at her and had to laugh. Then I went on to name all of the Mexican names I hear over and over again. She is Mexican. But, my husband’s family doesn’t have any of the common names. Or, none I can think of off the top of my head.

@john65pennington I was curious, so are you in favor of giving these people a path to citizenship so they will be legal and paying like everyone else?

Please do not get me wrong. my only concern is the part of being a legal citizen of The United States. once thats accomplished, i say go and make of America what you can. the key word is legal. once at a legal status, everything legal will fall into place for them, like the rest of us.

The original question was about illegal immigrants somehow finding a “loophole” to get free care in ERs at the taxpayer’s expense. The problem is that anyone can take advantage of this. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) mandates that people receive care to “stabilize” their medical condition regardless of ability to pay. It’s an unfunded mandate and hospitals pass the cost on to the rest of us in the form of higher insurance premiums (and ultimately higher taxes).

It’s my opinion that illegal immigrants are being used as a scapegoat; the problem is much more widespread than just them.

Not entirely unfunded, @Dr_Dredd.

@laureth OK, underfunded.

I was referring to EMTALA in general, not just as related to illegal immigrants. Say an American citizen is brought to the ER after an auto accident and requires neurosurgery to relieve swelling on the brain. If that person isn’t insured, that’s a lot of money the hospital will lose.

@Dr_Dredd – That’s what I was getting at with points 1–3 up there.

Emergency rooms do not provide healthcare, they provide emergency care. Their mission is to triage the crisis that has brought the person to their door and either get them out the door with a short term fix or if they’re unstable, admit them to the hospital where they’re kept and treated until they are stable.

Emergency room care is the most expensive kind of care to deliver, and very fragmented – you’re generally starting from scratch with each patient and so lots of expensive tests have to be done to figure out what’s going on. The indigent patient may not pay for it, but the system has to absorb the cost and it ends up costing everyone more than it would to provide actual healthcare in most cases.

For example, it’s been calculated that for very dollar spent on providing prenatal care to pregnant women, $4 is saved through decreased need for neonatal intensive care resulting from preventable premature births, untreated maternal infections, and undiagnosed and therefore untreated maternal diabetes and hypertension. Emergency rooms do not provide prenatal care. They do not manage diabetes and chronic hypertension and high cholesterol. They deal with the resultant heart attacks and strokes.

@laureth I know. I’m agreeing with you. :)

Oh, man, I sure hope they don’t pay. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to afford any fruit at the grocery store.

I am disgusted at the ignorance on this thread.

@Likeradar I can understand @john65pennington ‘s POV, as he is a police officer, and most cops swing towards the conservative side of politics. Being as their jobs entails working with the dregs of society most of the time, this isn’t hard to understand. I know several cops, and they aren’t fear-mongering FAUX NEWS types, blaming the ills of society on illegal immigrants and minorities, but when you think about it, he has a very valid point. A lot of false information and identity is being used by those here ILLEGALLY. what is it about the word illegal that liberals can’t seem to understand. If someone mugs you, that sort of illegal you understand, but border-jumping aliens are somehow different.

I agree with his views moreso than the liberal viewpoint, which thinks everything would be hunky-dory in America, if only we keep throwing money at the problems.

@camouflage_pants I am generally a liberal, although I lean conservative on fiscal issues. I don’t want to throw money at a porblem or throw it out in general. I was not annoyed by @john65pennington question, I was trying not to make any assumption about him, like he is just one of those conservative right winger guys who hates all foreigners or some BS like that. And, I agree with you that when you are around the dregs of the earth day in and day out your view of things is different than a middle class guy in surburbia.

I still wonder if @john65pennington is for having a path to citizenship? Seems these people are coming. If we make them legal they will have to pay like the rest of us.

As far as health care, providing emergency services is a human rights issue in the end. We are not going to watch someone die while waiting to pay in an ER. I just had an MRI and a nerve/muscle test, not an emergency, and they would not take me in for the test until I paid my part of the bill. I think some right wing people think everyone gets health care, if they need it. I have had friends say that they have never heard of someone being refused a test because they could not pay. Not true, people who cannot pay get less care.

There is so much corruption in the system. I think that should be addressed more than anything. Doctors run tons of unnecessary tests, raises the costs for all of us. The only solution I can see is to have doctors being salaried, but it will never happen in the US from what I can tell. Some of the best examples we have of health care do salary doctors, like Johns Hopkins and others, but no one is talking about that at all. Everyone is still basing everything fee for service.

@camouflage_pants I wasn’t referring to posts that gave opinions based on a valid point of view and experience, but the people who decided to use this thread to tell hateful “jokes” that only demonstrate their own ignorance and closed-mindedness.

I think we should think about how we can change the world so that immigrants see a future in their home countries.

Americans and Europeans who can afford it should buy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade

products like fair-trade coffee for example. Grocery stores should put them on their shelves.

@mattbrowne I was just talking about that yesterday with someone. Improving countries so their citiens don’t need to leave in the first place.

@JLeslie – There are many success stories. In the 60ies many people from Spain wanted to go to Germany. Today the people stay in Spain and it’s the Africans who want to go to Spain. And tomorrow the Africans will want to stay in Africa I would hope.