Thread: Obama’s Health RX: Cover Illegal Immigrants

Obama’s Health RX: Cover Illegal Immigrants
Posted by Obama ProjectJuly 21, 2008By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

NY POST - Democrats' single most important domes tic proposal - universal health insurance - may blow up in Barack Obama's face when voters are exposed to the deadly details.

Obama has said, proudly and often, "I am going to give health insurance to 47 million Americans who are now without coverage." But are they "Americans?"

That 47 million statistic includes illegal immigrants - who virtually all lack insurance. In fact, about one in four of those lacking insurance is here illegally. And they are, by far, the group most in need of health insurance.

About 15 million of the remaining uninsured are eligible for Medicaid but haven't signed up - mainly because they haven't gotten sick. When they do, they enroll in Medicaid and we pick up the full tab for their health care relatively cheaply. (About 80 percent of each Medicaid dollar goes to nursing-home care for the elderly, only about 20 percent for the medical needs of the poor.)

The rest of the uninsured pool? Virtually all the children are eligible for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Some aren't enrolled because the parents haven't bothered, but most are eligible. That leaves about 20 million uninsured adults who are US citizens or legal immigrants. There are far better ways to handle their needs than to turn our entire health-care system upside down.

Care for illegals is the biggest unmet medical need in our nation, and Obama's program targets it squarely. But do we really want to give them federally paid coverage equal to what US senators get, as Obama proposes? Covering illegals adds dramatically to the cost of any program - and would encourage more folks to enter America illicitly.

Obama's plan will likely have a horrific effect on some local health-care systems.

Illegals now get free emergency-room treatment for life-threatening conditions - as any other American who's entered an ER in an area with lots of illegals recently well knows. (Three-quarters of the illegal-immigrant population is concentrated in five states: California, New York, Florida, Texas and Illinois.)

But now they'd be eligible for the entire range of medical services, all free of charge. That would trigger severe rationing: bureaucrats deciding who gets to see an oncologist, who can have an MRI - and even who can have bypass surgery and who'd die for lack of it.

These decisions would be made not on the basis of legal status but on the brutal facts of triage: Treat the 37-year-old illegal with his whole life to live before you spend scarce resources on an overweight, diabetic, 80-year-old citizen with high blood pressure who smokes.

John McCain hasn't raised this issue, perhaps for fear of offending the Latino vote. But polling suggests the case against rationing of health care would be as persuasive to Hispanic-American citizens as it is to the rest of us. Nobody wants to die waiting in line - especially not behind someone who snuck in ahead of us.

McCain needs to hit the Obama plan for treating illegal immigrants to free, federally subsidized health insurance - and hit it hard.
http://www.barackobamaproject.com/2008/ ... mmigrants/

Obama needs to back up the bus on that plan right now.

If anything, we need to put a stop to freebie health care to illegals except for in legitimate emergency situations and even then, once the patient is stablized, they need to be shipped out for their home countries to pick up the bill.

And any revamping of health care for illegals needs to eliminate pre/post natal care and labor and delivery services.......pregnancy and childbirth is NOT an emergency health care situation unless tests prove conclusively that mother or child is in life threatening danger. Get rid of those services and watch "birthright citizenship" drop through the floor!!!!

azwreath wrote:

Get rid of those services and watch "birthright citizenship" drop through the floor!!!!

Elect a Democrat and you'll see an attempt to make more services available to illegal aliens, not less. I don't speak from bias (well, maybe a little ) but fact. Many immigrants, legal and illegal, who arrive poor and have a hard time making it in America rely on the social programs that Democrats love to hand out. Thanks to efforts in the family reunification arena, many legal immigrants arriving today are poor and will eventually end up on welfare. Of course if Obama or McCain is successful in setting million on a path to legalization, they too (the immigrants) will eventually look to the Democrats for their salvation.

Originally Posted by MW

azwreath wrote:

Get rid of those services and watch "birthright citizenship" drop through the floor!!!!

Elect a Democrat and you'll see an attempt to make more services available to illegal aliens, not less. I don't speak from bias (well, maybe a little ) but fact. Many immigrants, legal and illegal, who arrive poor and have a hard time making it in America rely on the social programs that Democrats love to hand out. Thaniks to efforts in the family reunification arena, many legal immigrants arriving today are poor and will eventually end up on welfare. Of course if Obama or McCain is successful in setting million on a path to legalization, they too (the immigrants) will eventually look to the Democrats as for their salvation.

Of course, that's a given. Unless we receive some kind of miracle that stops both of them from getting the vote, that's why we need to work on stopping them in Congress.

Anyone surprised? Just another reason to NO VOTE FOR OBAMA. DO NOT VOTE FOR OBAMA - HE WILL DESTROY AMERICA.