Thread: IAs getting referrals to US health care from Consulates!!!

OUTRAGEOUS!:

Immigrants getting health care at consulates
THE WASHINGTON POST
November 20, 2007

WASHINGTON - With a comprehensive U.S. immigration overhaul now perhaps years away, Latin American governments concerned with the well-being of their nationals living in this country are taking on an equally thorny issue: the U.S. health care system.

In Washington, some foreign consulates are providing eye exams and medical tests in addition to the traditional passport renewals and marriage registrations.

The Salvadoran consulate, which serves the largest immigrant group in the Washington area, began offering "estaciones de salud" (health stations) two years ago. The Mexican consulate followed suit last year, offering similar health services that it hopes to expand to its 47 consulates throughout the United States by year's end.

"My health is important," said Luz de Maria Mejia, 34, a nanny and restaurant worker who came to the United States four years ago without papers. She found navigating the health care system "extremely complicated" and has turned to the Salvadoran consulate for help.

Jose Rigoberto Martinez, a burly, 48-year-old carpenter with a temporary work permit, said he believes immigrants tend to neglect their health. "If we have a headache but there is work, we work," he said.

While waiting to get his blood pressure checked, Martinez said he has never received medical treatment other than a few visits to a chiropractor. He stopped seeing the chiropractor because getting time off work and justifying $45 a visit proved prohibitive.

Seventy-five percent of the more than 3,600 Salvadorans and Mexicans who received medical attention at their consulates in Washington this year had not had a medical checkup in the past three years, said German Valbuena, director of the local Hispanic Institute for Blindness Prevention, the lead agency running both consulates' health programs.

Salvadoran Consul General Ana Margarita Chávez said that soon after arriving in Washington, she fell ill and realized how expensive health care is in the United States. On average, 50 people a week received health services last year at the consulate. Those services normally include a referral to a health center or clinic that offers care regardless of the patient's economic or immigration status. NOTE: Illegal immigrants are being referred to American health care centers by the Consulate! American taxpayers are paying for the health care services the illegals receive at the health care centers and the Consulates are complicit in this happening!!! There it is, they refer them to clinics paid for by americans. If they want to provide healthcare for THEIR CITIZENS living in our country ILLEGALLY that is fine with me, but do not use OUR healthcare system to do it for FREE!

Mexico's secretary of health, Jose Ã

There it is...the only UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE in America is for ILLEGAL ALIENS!!! They don't pay or have (or need) insurance but get full advantage of all health care services! Furthermore, their Consulates are directing them where to go and how to use the American health care system to their benefit at the expense of the American taxpayer and to the detriment of the American citizen's use of its own health care system.

As part of his government's goal of providing universal health care by 2010, Cordova said he hopes to provide "health care to all Mexicans regardless of where they are."

If you are an American who travels to Mexico legally and are in need of real emergency medical treatment, and you don't have cash money, up front for the entire cost of any treatment, they will let you die on the ER floor without blinking an eye.

But if you are an illegal alien who stubs their toe trying to cross the border illegally and are not given immediate specialist treatment for free at U.S. taxpayer expense, they scream bloody genocide accusing us of racism and ethnic cleansing.

An unrelated but still very interesting and telling article:

Mexico Yanks Denver’s Chain
Posted By Brenda Walker On 21 November 2006 @ 1:04

In Colorado, the local Mexican consul has agreed to take care of some of its medical thieves who are ripping off the taxpayer. Sort of. But not really.

Hundreds of Mexican illegal immigrants are in Colorado not just for work but also for free medical care they say they can’t get back home. Now, Mexican officials have agreed to bring some home and help them find doctors there.

But many of these illegal immigrants - including Eloina Meza, a single mother of a disabled boy featured in the Nov. 13 Denver Post - see little incentive to return to a country where comparable opportunities don’t exist.

Juan Marcos Gutierrez, Mexico’s consul general in Denver, confirmed a new deal negotiated with Dr. Patricia Gabow, chief of the Denver Health and Hospital Authority.

Under the agreement, Denver health workers who provide kidney dialysis to illegal immigrants are guiding those who are willing to Mexico’s consulate in Denver.

The immigrants are told they can receive free travel home and help finding appropriate health care - though they get no assurance it will be free.
[Ill Mexican nationals go home, Denver Post 11/20/06]

The “agreementâ€

An article illustrating the hypocrasy:
http://illegalprotest.com/2007/11/02/wh ... ical-care/

February 19, 2007
Memo From Mexico, By Allan Wall
Why Mexican Hospital Emergency Rooms Aren’t Swamped

Emergency rooms in American hospitals are being overwhelmed by uninsured patients who don’t pay for medical care, as my VDARE.COM colleague Edwin Rubenstein has pointed out in several articles (see here and here). A significant portion of these patients are immigrants, often illegal aliens.

The complicating factor is a law known as EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985) which forbids emergency rooms from refusing service to anyone, regardless of ability to pay.

This has resulted in ERs being swamped by patients who must be treated for free, including illegal aliens. And not only illegal alien Mexicans in the U.S. In a brazen display of chutzpah, Mexicans who live on their side of the border are taken by ambulance to hospitals on the U.S. side, where they know they can’t be refused.

So not only does our federal government refuse to control the border, it also makes hospitals treat illegal aliens for free.

Did I say free? I meant free for the aliens—not for the hospitals, some of which are going out of business.

Of course, what the government should do is charge the cheap labor profiteers who hire illegals for both medical care and the costs of deportation.

How do they handle this in Mexico?

Well, as a resident of Mexico, I’ve been to Mexican emergency rooms a few times—as a visitor, as a parent, and just recently, as a patient myself.

When my elder son was twenty-two months old, he fell and cut his head. So my wife, mother-in-law and I took him in our Volkswagen to a private hospital emergency room. The boy had his noggin stitched up and was as good as new.

It wasn’t free though. My wife paid with a credit card before we departed the premises.

Just a few months ago, I developed a painful case of colitis, an unpleasant condition I hadn’t even known about until I had it.

The pain was so bad my wife took me to the nearest private hospital emergency room, where they hooked me up to an IV (the first time in my life I’d had that experience). They had to pump a lot of painkiller into me, and mix up some kind of potent IV cocktail to finally bring the pain down.

Before we left, my wife paid with a credit card. The good thing is, I didn’t have to spend the night, or it would’ve cost more.

No free medical care for me.

Now if I’d been thinking ahead, I could have tried to make a test case out of it. I could have tried to get emergency medical care for free, on the grounds that Mexicans get free emergency room care in the United States.

Somehow though, I don’t think they’d have bought that argument.

Wherever you go, medical care has to be paid for somehow. In Mexico there are various ways.

Rich Mexicans have any medical care they want, some of them even fly to Houston for it.

Middle class Mexicans can avail themselves of private sector medical care, which is reasonably priced.

Then there are various government-sponsored health insurance plans. The biggest is Seguro Social, which includes all private sector employees in the formal economy. I’m enrolled, but I’ve never used it.

The self-employed and workers in the informal economy aren’t automatically included in Seguro Social but can join the program and make the payments.

For government employees, there’s a different program called ISSSTE. The oil monopoly PEMEX has its health program for employees, the military has its program. In all of these employee-based programs, the employee’s paycheck is deducted to contribute to the fund. So they’re not free to the user either.

For Mexicans without health insurance, there’s a new program called Seguro Popular. To join this program, one must pay for it, except for those under a certain income level, who get it for free.

In addition, there are various medical facilities operated by charities and churches.

Americans residing in Mexico are generally either gainfully employed or financially independent (because that's the way the Mexican government wants it). So Americans either pay out of pocket for private care, or pay for a Seguro Social policy, or a combination of both. If a foreigner enters the Seguro Social he’d better be ready to have his Mexican immigration papers checked.

The urban area in which I reside has a number of hospitals and clinics, both public and private. Most ER care is paid for either out of pocket, or by one of the health insurance plans mentioned above. In the case of a car accident, the patient is taken by ambulance to whichever hospital is appropriate for his economic situation. Those who are indigent and can’t pay anything usually wind up at the Red Cross hospital, where, if they prove they can’t pay anything, they can get free care.

Interestingly enough, there is something superficially similar to EMTALA in Mexican law—Article 36 of the Ley General de Salud. [Word Document] It stipulates that health care providers, public or private, must charge Mexicans in accordance with their socioeconomic level and even exempt them if they are unable to pay.

As for foreigners who come to Mexico for the primary purpose of receiving medical treatment (as some do), they must be charged at the full rate, except in cases of emergency. [A los extranjeros que ingresen al paÃ*s con el propósito predominante de hacer uso de los servicios de salud, se cobrará Ã*ntegramente el costo de los mismos, excepto en los casos de urgencias.]

(And Mexican hospitals absolutely will turn foreigners away if they are unable to pay cash up front. “I was negotiating with them. It was like a barter. We were bartering back and forth. They wanted $20,000 US. They said, I'll take $10,000 US. It's like going to a flea market and you are playing with somebody's life hereâ€

I'm so sick of the blatant abuse of American taxpayers, I could scream! When will this insanity end?

How can what the consulates are doing be considered anything but aiding and abetting illegal immigrants. It's one thing when an illegal reports to an emergency room seeking emergency medical treatment ( ). However, it's a completely different situation when the illegal is being referred to specific hospitals for minor care. This is definitely not in accordance with the spirit of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985! The law does not require that they take medical referrels from foreign consulates - those are not emergencies!

Diplomats from foreign countries are granted 'diplomatic immunity'.
This isn't so for foreign consulates and its employees.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-diplomatic-immunity.htm

Not every foreign official or staff member of a consulate is entitled to full diplomatic immunity. A recognized foreign diplomat and his or her immediate family enjoys the most protection through diplomatic immunity, although even diplomats can receive traffic tickets. Administrators and technical personnel attached to a foreign diplomat are also protected very well under diplomatic immunity, but service staff members have no legal protection except when it comes to their performance of official duties.

The situation changes at the consulate level, however. Unlike the diplomatic corps, officers and staff assigned to consulates have very few protections under the rules of diplomatic immunity. Diplomats and consulate officers cannot be compelled to testify in court concerning official acts, but consular officers can be prosecuted or subpoenaed as witnesses.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-consulate.htm

Unlike an embassy, a consulate does not have the power to negotiate diplomatically. Consular employees are also not offered diplomatic immunity, although they may act much like ambassadors for their nations. Staff at a consulate may also keep an eye on activities in their host nation, much like embassy staff do. Consular networks can act as a large informal information gathering system which can also be used as an early warning system, alerting their host nations to upcoming issues.

All foreign consuls that flaunt U.S. Law concerning illegal aliens should be closed and their employees charged with felonious "aidding and abetting" illegal immigrants. They are "shielding from detection" illegal aliens by "a referral to a health center or clinic that offers care regardless of the patient's economic or immigration status".

The Law:
1. It is 'aiding or abetting' to "encourage or induce an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law." 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv).

2. It is 'aiding or abetting' to "conceal or attempt to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, illegal aliens, including any building or any means of transportation."
8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii).

3. It is also 'aiding or abetting' to "engage in any conspiracy to commit any of the preceding acts."
8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(v)(I).

4. It is a felony to 'aid or abet' in the commission of the above acts.
8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(v)(II).

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

MW and MyAmerica, this is indeed aiding and abetting. Yet, all who oppose are demonized, while the unabashed pandering continues.