re: #242 right_wing2

As I understand it, while most (all?) of the Dem. sponsored health care bills deny illegal immigrants coverage, there’s no requirement under these bills that eligibility be verified. In fact, an amendment adding that requirement, along with one specifically removing abortion as a covered ‘procedure’ were both defeated.

It doesn’t matter whether eligibility is verified or not. Right now, under the 1986 Federal EMTALA legislation, all hospitals which receive Medicare payments are required by law to provide emergency medical treatment until the patient is stabilized or gives written permission to be released. Given that virtually all hospitals accept Medicare, this is a defacto nationwide requirement for treatment for critical situations - heart attack, acute allergy, serious injury, delivery and a host of other ailments where denial of such service would cause serious impairment or place the patient in serious jeopardy.

Without explicit changes to this act, no one can be denied treatment under such circumstances, no matter what their citizenship.

And frankly, that’s as it should be; the specter of a hospital telling a patient, “Sorry, you’re not a citizen, go bleed to death in the street” is too chilling for words. We’re just going to have to accept the fact that in these cases, taxpayers are going to be picking up the tab. That’s no different at all from what takes place right now, except that it isn’t taxpayers but those who pay their own medical bills or who carry insurance who pay the costs for such treatment. It’s hard to take issue with this. From a humanitarian standpoint, it’s the right thing to do.

More disturbing is the far larger population of patients who come in seeking treatment for headaches, colds, minor cuts and bruises and the host of minor annoyances that daily plague mankind. Although cheaper to treat, there are thousands of times more such cases, and here the drain on taxpayer resources quickly adds up; although a single tiny hole in a bowl isn’t too much of a problem, a colander makes for a very poor boat.

The problem is: what to do about it? Requiring proof of citizenship inevitably leads to the issuance of a national ID card of some description, or some other government-operated national database of eligible citizens. Conservatives have long been opposed to such measures for a variety of reasons, beginning with the enormous intrusion of the Federal government into the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens they emplace. Allowing such treatment, with the hope that usage will remain small, is foolish; you’ll soon be providing medical treatment to the entire Mexican population, and probably a significant chunk of the Canadian population as well, since our current treatment and diagnostic resources are much richer than Canada’s and we already attract significant medical business from across that border - we’d attract even more if the services were provided for free.