Immigration Law

THE IMMIGRANT HEALTH CARE DILEMMA

By Greg Siskind

The New York Times Deborah Sontag has written one of the best reports I've so far seen on the difficult subject of health care and immigrants. Sontag's story focuses on what hospitals do who receive seriously injured and ill immigrant patients - both legally and illegally present - who lack health insurance. The report discusses the variety of responses hospitals have had in dealing with patients whose care can be extraordinarily expensive. Some force out patients and act to repatriate them to hospitals outside the US. Unlike American patients, Medicaid is not an option and reimbursement from the federal government stopped last month when a law providing for such assistance expired.

Who are the bad guys here?

The hospitals? Hospitals that force out patients who may face life threatening circumstances? But health care costs are driven up for everyone else and hospitals are facing the financial crisis as well. Is it fair that they are forced to bear the costs?

The patients? Should people illegally present be permitted to pass the costs on to American hospitals or the American government? And what about their home country governments that often seem to lose interest if they find out someone else is paying. On the other hand, many of these people have worked extremely hard and provided benefits to the American public, particularly those who are employed in backbreaking jobs. And contrary to what most people believe, they pay taxes. They pay sales taxes and in large percentage of cases, they're paying income taxes as well.

How about Congress? If we had a guest worker program, many of these people would potentially have access to health insurance. And how about the broken health care system that has left so many American citizens destitute simply because they had the misfortune to get sick? How many years must pass before Congress tackles this thorny problem.

The article presents a lot of tough questions and I don't pretend to have the answers. I have hope, however, that we're finally at a stage as a country where our leaders will begin tackling these issues and passing needed reforms after decades of gridlock.

Full post as published by Greg Siskind's Blog on November 09, 2008 (boomark / email).