Posted on 08/11/2009 6:31:14 AM PDT by Zakeet
As he pushes his cart around the Southwest Side selling steamed ears of corn, sliced cucumbers and other street food, Omar Castillo embodies a potential life-and-death issue that has become the third rail in the debate over health-care reform.
Peddling snacks -- doused with lime and chili powder and priced at $1.50 each -- is how Castillo, 19, is trying to pay for expensive medication he needs to stay healthy after receiving a kidney transplant last year.
Because he is in the U.S. illegally, he has no ready access to aid for such long-term medical expenses. To cover such needs for an estimated 6.8 million undocumented and uninsured immigrants in the country, some health-care advocates have proposed broadening the health-care proposals before Congress. But fierce opposition has kept the idea off the table.
As it is, Castillo received his transplant and a year of free medicine only as part of a hospital study at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center, after a Latino activist campaign and a call from the governor's office got him included. With the study over, his last free prescription is running out, and with it, his chances for a healthy life.
"We don't know what we'll do when the medicine is gone," said Castillo, holding two nearly empty bottles of pills he takes to ward off an organ rejection.
Immigration activists say it is "immoral" for hospitals and doctors, as well as a nation, to deny health care to the seriously ill, no matter their legal status.
[Snip]
Given spotty health care in countries such as China or Mexico, "Health insurance alone might be worth people coming here ... especially if you've got a family that's got a lot of illness in it," argued Roy Beck, director of Numbers USA.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Moral Dilemma: What to do with a 19 year old illegal immigrant with no education or job skills who takes donated kidney (meaning a U.S. citizen goes without) in transplant funded with money taken from U.S. taxpayers and now needs more money to buy expensive anti-rejection medication?
Expensive meds?
WHO PAID FOR HIS TRANSPLANT???
Nobody ever said that the life of a criminal should be easy or risk free.
The Obama acolytes feel that America has the worst medical system on the planet, so clearly they should return to Mexico where they enjoy stellar care there.
They’re free to choose to return to their own country.
I am sympathetic to his plight, but he is illegal and should go back to his own country.
An American citizen has died so that this criminal may live.
‘U.S. illegally, he has no ready access to aid for such long-term medical expenses.’
Tough titty said the kitty.
Adios. We have to put citizens first, then legal residences.
Sorry, but reform your own country and the best luck to ya.
Send Mexico the bill for this illegal’s transplant surgery. They have been raking in money from their oil, another contribution from the poor American’s pocket.
We owe this lawbreaker nothing. However, a free trip back to Mexico would be a good investment or we will be paying for this 19 year old’s medical care for the next 50 or 60 years.
GO HOME!!!!
You have already stolen far too much from Americans.
OH Waaaa. Hey illegal ... het the F out of my country
Let the Mexican government take care of him.
Adios muchacho..my family, my country come first.
It was “free” as part of a study. Apparently the writer missed that day in econ when they talked about there being no such thing as a free lunch. Or in this case a free kidney transplant. I have heard that if you go into Canada (from our relatives) all he needs to say is refugee and he gets all kids of ‘free” services, including health care. Of course, our cousin figures that for every $100 he makes, he gets to keep about $24. So I guess that econ lesson applies in Canada too.
These people can go to Mexico and get free socialized medicine, so why are they here?
There are lots of heart wrenching stories and no matter how compassionate we are, we have enough trouble trying to take care of our own. We just can’t be the free healthcare provider to the world.
“WHO PAID FOR HIS TRANSPLANT???”
And how in the hell did he nudge to the front of the line for an available kidney???
That's a big boo hoo, and let them go back to the wonderful health care system they came from or assume room temperature here.
I always hear how illegals are contributing so much to the country when it's obvious to anyone with even a modicum of intelligence that they consume far more than they produce. It's just another form of taxpayer subsidy to the businesses that hire them.
They have socialized medicine where he came from. He should have been returned home immediately upon diagnosis. This story is supposed to tug at our heart strings. Well I’m sick of such stories.
LaRazaCare.
Open up the borders.
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