Obama's health care plan for state shouldn't ignore elephant in the room

Palo Alto Daily News ^ | 25 August 2009 | Thomas D. Elias

[Bob017]

Obama adamantly insists his plan would in no way benefit illegal immigrants, but it's hard to see how one of his central claims can be accurate so long as he ignores the large populace of illegals in this state, variously estimated at between 1.8 million and 2.5 million persons.

"Right now," says the White House position paper on how the Obama reforms would help Californians, "providers lose over $5.1 billion in bad debt which often gets passed to families in the form of a hidden premium 'tax.' Health insurance reform will tackle this financial burden by "... covering the uninsured, allowing the 355 hospitals and 115,740 physicians in California to better care for their patients."

That "hidden tax" amounts to about $1,400 per year in added expense for every current policy holder in California. The clear implication is that pass-through charges for indigents using emergency rooms will disappear if and when everyone has health insurance.

But that can only be true if everyone is covered. As long as the plan excludes illegals — and there's no way any plan covering them could get through Congress — it won't eliminate a major portion of the expenses creating the "hidden tax" in California.

For very few illegals have health insurance. But courts have ruled repeatedly that hospitals cannot turn them away from emergency rooms, the venue they generally must use because doctors and ordinary hospital admissions officials usually demand proof of insurance before providing care.

This makes it plain a healthy chunk of the $5.1 billion "hidden tax" will still be out there even if some form of the Obama plan takes effect.

What remains unknown is who will pick up that tab:

[DB]

Put on a billboard that illegals cost every Californian that purchases health insurance $1400 a year and see what they think of that. And that is just for health care. Add law enforcement and education and the number skyrockets...

Yet the Dems just keep on offering our resources and labor to them...

[jnsun]

Wow, this is a circulated newspaper finally saying this? (When about sixty percent of the taxpaying public already has.)

Think about it, Obama and his Democrat cabal write one thousand pages of healthcare mandate and have not figured this out??? That either the illegals are deported, or they are included, implicitly, deceitfully, or otherwise!

Think about it, Obama and his Democrat cabal write one thousand pages of healthcare mandate and never address lawsuit reform???

Sorry folks but this is the biggest recipe for disaster yet forthcoming from a truly bigoted and incompetent administration. Backed by a bigoted and incompetent political party.

Harvard: Barack Obama, John D.Rockefeller IV, Teddy Kennedy, Zbigniew Brzinski, etc.