An article in the Chicago Tribune seems to be using the power of empathy and emotion about the plight of a very ill illegal alien to convey the message that the undocumented should also be covered by Obamacare. And get this, the story is about a patient who received an organ transplant–despite not being a legal resident. From the story:
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. 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.
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.
I am stunned. Political interference got a man apparently known to be in the country illegally included in an organ transplant study, which meant that an American did not get into the study. And now, we are supposed to, apparently, pay for his health care for the rest of his life. Indeed, advocates claim we should pay for illegal alien health care:
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. “Those of us with good health insurance just don’t have to live with because we can go get the medication,” said Jennifer Tolbert, a policy analyst at the non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation, which has studied health-care disparities among immigrants. To some extent, “if those individuals have communicable diseases … there may be a risk [of] spreading that condition,” Tolbert said…Concerns over the financial burden have led other hospitals to make…decisions denying treatment, said Julie Contreras, an organizer in Chicago for the League of United Latin American Citizens.”These people, some of them are going to die,” Contreras said. “When a hospital denies treatment to any human being … this is flat-out immoral.”
Once we start paying for illegal immigrant health care beyond emergencies (which should be covered, the patient stabilized, and then deported home for care), seriously ill aliens will strive to come here in droves, and indeed, their governments would have a real incentive to aid them as a way of taking the pressure off their own health care systems. We can’t afford that. We just can’t.
But that would not dissuade activists, who apparently see the USA as a limitless cornucopia. Once universal health care passed, count on lawsuits to force inclusion, or at least dissuade exclusion for those not here legally. Indeed, the litigation has already begun:
Hospitals nationwide have grappled with how to deal with indigent patients without legal status. In Chicago and elsewhere, some private facilities have arranged to have undocumented patients flown back to their own country, a practice that resulted in a landmark lawsuit in Florida last year on behalf of a Guatemalan man who suffered severe brain injuries from a car crash. Last month, a Florida jury found that the hospital was within its rights to have Luis Alberto Jimenez repatriated.
Imagine that case getting to a jury! As much as we care about people such as the man in the story, as much as our hearts wrench at the plight of the world’s poor, the answer isn’t to incentivize the ill and the destitute to come here, but to induce their own governments to improve conditions at home.
We need reform, but not a sweeping government takeover of health care that would not be the end of “hope and change,” but, given the membership in the political coalition of those now in charge, would surely widen over time to include the undocumented ill. Indeed, many experienced political operatives would work overtime to make it so.
August 11th, 2009 | 2:14 pm
I think the real problem here, Wesley, lies not with the immigrant, but with the study’s authors who knew that this guy would only have a limited time in the study. I mean, why would they allow him to participate in something where they knew he would have to take a lifetime of anti-reject drugs when he’s illegal and can’t afford to buy them himself? Doesn’t that smack of something odious, almost racist? It’s like pharmaceutical companies doing their experiments in Africa or other Third World areas on illiterates, as if they are there for rich whitey’s use. “Hey brownskin, come over here and let’s try this experiment on you. When we’re done and you’re dependent on drugs, you’re on your own.” That’s where the real problem lies.
August 11th, 2009 | 4:54 pm
The study’s authors probably figured they were doing as much as anyone could for this guy, and I have a hard time faulting them. I mean, where would he be without them? Easier to get pills than a transplant.
Also, if this transplant was truly experimental (as opposed to the health insurers’ definition of “experimental”), don’t get too worried about him taking an American’s place in line. He assumed significant risk.
It’s unfortunate that this fairly odd case is being used as a focal point for immigrant health care. I don’t think it is a health care issue; it’s the conflict we have between wanting the illegals to be here as a cheap work force, and ofttimes taxpayers, without granting them any privileges. I’ll give credit to W that he tried to get a guest worker program started, but of course he bailed on that as soon as it ran into conservative opposition.
August 11th, 2009 | 5:36 pm
The thing with me is that I want consistency. I am okay with helping illegal immigrants with healthcare as long as my grandmother isn’t denied that care due to rationing. If the government or private sector can come up with a way to make that happen, ie, care for both individuals with the full range of options available, than I’m all for it. But any program that covers illegal immigrants but not elderly American citizens is a fraud as far as human rights are concerned, so that is my main concern when people talk a bout whether to cover illegal immigrants-will we end up denying a critical health care procedure to a ninety year old American woman so that a twenty year old illegal immigrant woman can have an elective procedure? There lies, to my mind, the main crux of the illegal immigrant healthcare debate.
August 11th, 2009 | 7:13 pm
In support of your point, I work in a public school where we are not allowed to ask for proof of citizenship. We need 2 pieces of i.d. that show residency–that’s it. Even if students are not here legally they must be provided with a tax-payer funded education. Would health care be much different?
August 12th, 2009 | 4:34 am
Honestly, some of the things said here are the kind of comments that make me identify myself as either a caring conservative, or more often a pro-life liberal.
This blog often states that certain things can be legal and morally reprehensible. And now it turns around and says that we should not treat someone who is here illegally the same as someone who is here following the law. Has it been considered that maybe, just maybe, the law is morally wrong? Maybe the same system of law that could as easily make euthanasia legal as it has done to abortion, could make opposing the president as illegal as it has done to immigration. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it right, just because something is illegal doesn’t make it wrong.
P.S. Against common opinion, illegal immigrants do pay taxes; after all many taxes are levied on food and most other things that are purchased. Also, companies are taxed and the salaries of illegal immigrants with fake papers are taxed exactly the same way that a legal person’s salary is taxed.
August 12th, 2009 | 4:41 am
P.P.S. Rereading Kathy’s comment I want to point out that education is heavily financed by property taxes. Illegal immigrants who have housing do pay taxes on the housing. Do you seriously believe that when an illegal immigrant buys a house the house just magically disappears from the city/county’s records? Local government won’t worry about a house’s residents’ legal status as long as they are paying their property taxes.
August 12th, 2009 | 12:24 pm
Just to clarify and amplify some of Armando’s points, illegal aliens working here generally pay payroll taxes but then don’t file federal returns. They typically set a huge number of dependents to minimize their deductions, but they still have to pay full Social Security tax. Obviously they will never be able to collect the SS benefits, because they’re paying in under a fake or borrowed SSN. So the USA comes out behind on payroll tax, but we get extra $$ for Social Security.
If you read any of the stories about big immigration raids you can verify this for yourselves. Meatpacking plants seem to get hit by this the most lately.
August 13th, 2009 | 4:18 pm
Seal the borders. End trade with China. End all foreign trade for a while for that matter. Close down the insurance companies. Impeach Obama. End the tort reform movement, then vote Republican or Conservative straight down the line. Make all the social workers, ethicists, medical billers, administrators, and various other superfluous types do actual work, if they are capable of doing it, or else let them starve and let’s be rid of them, and let’s have a country where we actually make things and stand on our own two feet, and that will take care of the death culture problem. And if anyone else in the rest of the world doesn’t like it, send them a few missiles until they mind their own business the way we need to mind our own right now.
August 20th, 2009 | 1:12 am
Armando, I don’t really think Wesley is proposing we let people die, citizens or not. The questions are, where will the money come from? Will someone else get screwed over in the process? Will the expenses crash the system entirely?
Ianthe, I take exception to your barb at medical billers. My mother’s job is enormously complex and frustrating, such that I doubt I could ever do it. I’m inclined to respect her opinion when she says this health overhaul is going to be a nightmare.
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