Why health care is so costly (Schlafly - Illegal Aliens)

Townhall.com ^ | January 28th, 2003 | Phyllis Schlafly

[Sabertooth]

Phyllis Schlafly (archive)

January 28, 2003

Why health care is so costly

While Americans without health insurance struggle with the problem of how to pay for medical care, Mexicans don't have that problem. They just ride in a Mexican ambulance across the border to a hospital in Arizona, New Mexico, California or Texas, and get free medical treatment.

The costs are currently paid by a combination of socking the taxpayers in those four border states plus inflating prices for patients who pay their own bills, insurance companies and Medicaid. This ridiculous situation is caused by a combination of U.S. officials allowing the Mexican cars to cross our border and the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which mandates that U.S. hospitals with emergency-room services treat anyone who shows up for care, including illegal aliens. This unfunded mandate was legislated by a Congress that closed its eyes to the costs.

We are not just talking about Mexicans who may have had an accident close to the border. We are talking about Mexicans with serious health problems who are deliberately sent to the United States after Mexican hospitals discover they can't pay for services and have no insurance.

Sens. John McCain and John Kyl have proposed a solution for this dilemma: lighten the tax burden on their own state while shifting it to U.S. taxpayers nationwide. How parochial! They introduced a bill to hit the U.S. taxpayers for $200 million for medical treatment of illegal aliens.

A study made by the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition, an American lobbying group, found that U.S. hospitals in border states provide at least $200 million a year in uncompensated emergency care to illegal aliens. In the four border states, 77 hospitals now face a medical emergency.

Uncompensated care to illegal aliens in Arizona cost the Cochise County Health Department 30 percent of its annual budget, the Copper Queen Hospital in Bisbee $200,000 out of a net operating income of $300,000, the University Medical Center in Tucson $10 million, and the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Tucson $1 million in only the first quarter of last year. The Southeast Arizona Medical Center in Douglas is on the verge of bankruptcy and some emergency rooms and pre-natal units have closed because they can't afford to stay open.

Arizona hospitals have offered donated medical equipment and ambulances to Mexican medical facilities, but Mexican customs officials have not permitted much of it to enter Mexico. They apparently prefer to send their sick to U.S. hospitals rather than care for them in Mexico. Other costs of dumping Mexicans on U.S. hospitals include transporting the seriously ill by helicopter from small border hospitals to Tucson or Phoenix. This cost ranges from $7,000 to $20,000 a trip.

In San Antonio, University Health System officials have proposed a statewide quarter-cent sales tax to help hospitals pay for uninsured persons who show up at the door. During the last three years, Houston's Harris County Hospital District spent $330 million to treat and immunize illegal aliens, an amount estimated to be at least 20 percent of the indigent caseload.

In California, where the state budget crunch is forcing reductions in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, observers warn of an approaching catastrophe in the health-care system. Almost one in five Californians lacks health insurance, yet the law requires hospitals to continue to serve illegal aliens free.

These costs are especially onerous because hospitals are struggling with falling Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates and rising medical malpractice premiums, and most states are struggling with revenue shortfalls. Hospitals are often hit with providing follow-up care when an uninsured patient remains bedridden for months.

It's not just the border states. Florida hospitals last year spent $40.5 million providing care to uninsured aliens.

All this is in addition to the many illegal aliens who are injured in highway accidents when the trucks they are jammed into like sardines are driven recklessly by uninsured Mexican drivers trying to evade police. Such accidents have occurred as far away as Utah and Iowa.

Another area where the U.S. taxpayers are taken for chumps is food stamps given to illegal aliens. Coming from countries that have no respect for a rule of law, they don't understand that selling food stamps is a crime.

Food-stamp fraud among illegal aliens came to light in 1996 when Ohio authorities discovered that a Jordanian man and his uncle had deposited $24 million in purchased food stamps in the bank accounts associated with their chain of food and video stores. A ring of Somali asylum seekers netted $40,000 in food stamp fraud. When are Americans going to wake up to the price we are paying because our government won't stop the invasion of illegal aliens?

©2003 Copley News Service

Contact Phyllis Schlafly | Read her biography

[Sabertooth]

Let's put this on the "ignored by President Bush's State of the Union Address" list, too.

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((((((growl)))))

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((((((growl)))))

[Brian Allen]

BIG BUMP!

[Red Jones]

Always glad to see a phylis schlafly inspired thread on free republic. in my humble opinion if you were to pick 5 noteworthy and outstanding personalities among the conservatives of the last 50 years you would put phylis schlafly on that list. She first started participating in american politics at just as high quality an effort as this one prior to 1950. She's been at it ever since and she has applied her talents on a wide range of issues. Hilary Clinton is mediocre compared to phylis schlafly. Schlafly got her phd from harvard in 1945.

[Pelham]

You said it. The "What, Me Worry?" White House hasn't time for little stuff like this.

[Red Jones]

americans can't say 'no' to would-be immigrants it seems. But when we do have the presence of mind to see that we should preserve and protect america from excessive and illegal immigration, then Europe may quickly follow our lead. It is a myth that we cannot quickly and easily do away with new illegal immigration.

If we were to have the government use its' social security database to identify the illegals in the workforce and then require the employer to let the person go, then the illegal alien problem would be cured inexpensively and immediately. However, it would be our obligation to provide some sort of amnesty. And you know no such law can be passed without amnesty. Our goal should be only to shut down new illegal immigration and accept amnesty for 90% of the rest.

We need to have public campaigns and ask our people who's in charge, us or the elites on a wide range of issues, including this one. Then we need to publicly humiliate and vote out all politicians, democrat or republican, who fail to support the will of the majority on issues such as illegal immigration. We should not care who we vote in. Then, we should play the same trick when the new guy comes up for re-election. This is the only strategy that will work.

The decision was made in 1986 in the simpson-mazoli act for our nation to not use the social security data bank to identify illegals. This one decision made law enforcement dysfunctional and unable to stop the illegal immigration. Reagan was originally all in favor of the bill because it was going to have them weed out the illegals by determining in the payroll records who had illegals hired. But the new world order people in the senate put lines of code in the bill that would short-circuit our ability to use these payroll/ssn records. Reagan signed the bill reluctantly. It was 86, he was beaten down by then. We can un-do that decision and I'm sure Reagan would want us to. I'm sure reagan today would regret selecting ghw bush as vp.

[Sabertooth]

If we were to have the government use its' social security database to identify the illegals in the workforce and then require the employer to let the person go, then the illegal alien problem would be cured inexpensively and immediately. However, it would be our obligation to provide some sort of amnesty. And you know no such law can be passed without amnesty. Our goal should be only to shut down new illegal immigration and accept amnesty for 90% of the rest.

No dice. Never. Amnesty for Illegals is the root of the problem, not the solution.

We need to have public campaigns and ask our people who's in charge, us or the elites on a wide range of issues, including this one. Then we need to publicly humiliate and vote out all politicians, democrat or republican, who fail to support the will of the majority on issues such as illegal immigration.

The will of the people is for no Amnesty. You're an advocate for the elites. Your 90% Amnesty proposal is far more corrosive than anything GWB has yet proposed, and he's been a flat-out weasel thus far on Illegals.

Please, rethink your post.

[Red Jones]

well I appreciate your consideration of these things.

I would only give amnesty to those who've really been here supporting themselves for a year or more. But you believe that the majority of ordinary americans would oppose amnesty if we really were to be able to use the payroll information already reported and the computer to eliminate new illegal hiring. And I believe that under these conditions the americans by a majority would want to grant amnesty to those who really have been here and held down a job for just one year. Because some of these people been here for 10 years and have kids here who are in school. We don't as a nation want to send these people home. Home is here for them. And second, from pure principal our nation made it legal for our employers to hire them as long as they got a fake ID, and our employers knew the government wouldn't use the computer to see who's legal and not. The only one who broke the law in the transaction of the employer hiring an illegal is the illegal. It was legal for the company tohire themif only they had fake ID. If you were from south mexico or guatemala, then you'd want to come el norte to work if opportunity arose. We made the opportunity, so let's not punish em for taking it. It would also create substantial hardship in mexico and central america to just send back so many millions. It would also disrupt american business. It's best not to disrupt american business. By keeping the business' from hiring illegals in the future it will provide slow upward pressure on wages for many jobs. It will not disrupt any business though.

I like your posts. But just like Ronald Reagan in 1986 I support amnesty with this computer check at the same time. Reagan made a mistake we see in hindsight to not veto the bill as he didn't get the bill he wanted on his desk, but he signed it anyway.


Tancredo's a hero for being bold on legislation. But his legislation won't work without amnesty. Bush and his 'match an employer to an employee' immigration policies are the problem, not someone like me.

[Sawman from Phoenix]

Sounds like you're old enough to have assisted in preventing the problem before it reached this stage ! What did you do to prevent it ?

[FITZ]

If we were to have the government use its' social security database to identify the illegals in the workforce and then require the employer to let the person go, then the illegal alien problem would be cured inexpensively and immediately. However, it would be our obligation to provide some sort of amnesty.

I should hope those committing felony crimes by using stolen and fraudulent Social Security numbers would not ever be given amnesty ---it's certainly a felony for an American to present fraudulent documents and should be for foreigners. "Some sort of amnesty" could actually be possible but I'm not sure it's necessary at all ---if someone made the choice to come here illegally, I don't know why we have to bend over backward all the time to fix their situation when they could have done that themselves. Also if there has to be amnesty, it shouldn't be given to those who used taxpayer money ever, only to those who have paid their own way ----including their own health care. Bush said it would be for those who have committed "no other crimes" and I would hope that includes shoplifting, welfare fraud, DWI, driving without insurance, failure to register with the draft and all the rest. If Bush kept the promise that it would only be to those who completely followed every other law and were never taxpayer burdens, there would be few who could be given amnesty.

[healey22]

No matter how much the elephants try to ignore the elephant standing in the middle of the room, the issue is not going away. I just copied and sent to my Republican reps.

[FITZ]

Our goal should be only to shut down new illegal immigration and accept amnesty for 90% of the rest.

Why 90%? Many of the 20 million illegals have arrived in just the past few years and aren't assimilated, have no steady employment or any real reason to be here. If they're begging for jobs in a Home Depot parking lot, they aren't self-sufficient enough to be given permanent status. I could see a trade-off of some amnesty with elimination of all welfare to immigrants including free health care and WIC and an end to the anchor baby problem and other family "reunification" so that the foreign elderly can't be brought in to collect SSI and Medicaid just because they have family here.

[HennepinPrisoner]

Sens. John McCain and John Kyl have proposed a solution for this dilemma: lighten the tax burden on their own state while shifting it to U.S. taxpayers nationwide. How parochial! They introduced a bill to hit the U.S. taxpayers for $200 million for medical treatment of illegal aliens.

As much as I loathe McCain, I agree with this bill. Arizona, Califonia, Texas, and New Mexico should not have to shoulder the cost for this crap alone.

[Dante3]

Good article.

[chatham]

Amen, while I'm a Bush fan, I sure disagree with him on the Border problems of ,Free Health, Food, and Illegals allowed to cross the border and stay. Then the possibility of bush giving them amnesty and making them citizens is really unsettling. Toward Iraq he is very strong, Toward mexico and their Illegals he has no Balls.

[GailA]

btt

[Carry_Okie]

A study made by the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition, an American lobbying group, found that U.S. hospitals in border states provide at least $200 million a year in uncompensated emergency care to illegal aliens. In the four border states, 77 hospitals now face a medical emergency.

No offense, but an additional $200 million doesn't explain Why health care is so costly. The industry GDP is over $1 trillion annually. $200 million is but .02% of the total. Clearly the burden should be nationalized until the nation as a whole shows the political will to get the feds to control the border, else those counties will continue to suffer.

[Mr. Bungle]

"As much as I loathe McCain, I agree with this bill. Arizona, Califonia, Texas, and New Mexico should not have to shoulder the cost for this crap alone. "

I'd prefer that the states (regardless of geography) whose representatives vote against tougher federal laws shoulder the burden. Exclusively. Depriving politicians, and voters, of feedback is always a bad idea. Nothing ever gets fixed.

You know, "tanstaafl," and such.

California, in all probability, is getting just what it seems to want.

[Uncle Bill]

One of the few remaining sane voices in the Republic.

U.S. Social Security for Mexicans

Hooyah!