I think the point DougC was making is that in a healthcare system reliant on private providers, mass non-payment poses a risk that the healthcare provider will go bankrupt and be unable to provide any healthcare at all. Therefore mandating universal access in those circumstances threatens the whole system, and it makes sense to allow those providing the care to ration access to those who will at least be able to cover the cost of provision. I don’t see anyone suggesting that restaurants have a duty to serve a square meal to anyone who walks in and asks for one, even if they are starving.
Of course, in a fully government-funded system, the problem is different. Namely that the taxpayer picks up the bill. I don’t know of a single country that has managed to crack the Universal Coverage Vs Cost problem, given that the demand for healtcare is basically infinite and cost inflation is rampant.
What IS the situation with non-paying ER patients in the US anyhow? Does the hospital have to absorb the whole cost or do they just send the bill to the government in some way?
The INS requires that you check documentation that the potential employee provides to assure yourself to a “reasonable degree” that they are in the country legally. All his employees had provided such documentation. If you don’t hire them you can be accused of discrimination so you can’t take a chance if they are qualified and there is no other means to refuse employment. My son did not know if they were illegal and didn’t assume they were; he fulfilled his part. When INS came in is when he found out. He would never have hired people that had no papers. You can’t expect the layman to examine documentation and decide if it’s forged or not and INS does not expect them to. He didn’t hire anyone back who the INS had taken, even when they had new “papers”.
I would tend to doubt this because at this point we have supposedly fifteen million illegal hispanics in this country. Can you provide some basis for this statement because if this is the case then it seems it would be much easier to resolve the problem.
Well, there are far more sources of food than a restaurant; that allows them to spread the blame if someone is starving. With, say, surgery, who else is there than the hospital ?
Besides, if millions were starving while others ate nice food in restaurants, I bet they would get the blame, not to mention looted. After all, it’s a lot harder to extort medical care than food at gunpoint; a restaurant wouldn’t last long in a neighborhood full of starving people with no money for food. Not without lots of armed guards, at least.
Some of the posters have a gut reaction to seeing other people suffer. And when I was younger I used to see them as helpless victims. But, this philosoophy will get you nowhere in solving the problem as the years have taught me. I’m not speaking from the vantage point of having lived in a cave. I have real experiences related to illegal immigration that have affected my life and the lives of people I know. My ex-daughter-in-law came to the U.S. on a visa and overstayed. Now she is a citizen. Her brother has tried three times to try to cross the border illegally from Colombia but has been caught each time. He is afraid for his family in Colombia and has applied for legal entry but the waiting list is long. I worked in pear picking with illegal immigrants in California and got to know a lot about them. They were just like other people, some were bad, even criminals, and some just wanted a better life. But, they also took advantage of our system to get SS disability, which they were entitled to whether they were legal or not. Some were pigs in every way; their culture disrespects women to a large degree. Or maybe that’s just the lower class people I got to know. My son experienced first hand the hate his kitchen workers had for Americans. He didn’t just “project” this on them. He worked with them every day and experienced it. One of my sons is an emergency room nurse and he just gets so angry with the continuous stream of non-English speaking people who come in demanding services for minor ailments because they have no insurance. They bring in 3-4 children at a time for colds. They come in because it’s free. When I was preparing taxes a couple of years ago we found out that large hispanic families would “lend” children to smaller families so they could get the earned income credit, which is thousands of dollars of free money. It doesn’t come from your withholding. The government just pays it to you for having young children. The “government” being you and I. If none of this makes you mad you are a better person than I.
I don’t like cruelty to other human beings any more than the next person, but I feel so helpless when I see the terrible impact this stream of people flowing across our border is having. I feel that we have a right to compel these people to enter our country legally. I agree with the poster who said it will cause problems to cut off this labor supply, but that in balance, it’s better than the problems they are causing. Arguments that Hispanics are not the only one responsible for problems in our society have no relevance in this discussion. I’m strictly taking about Mexicans coming across the border illegally by the millions.
One observation I would like to make is that I agree that our society has come a long way over the years in the area of discrimination; but the pendulum has swung so far that we have become simpering do-gooders spouting platitudes while our economy and way of life disintegrate around us because we are afraid to call a spade a spade. The plain facts are that uncontrolled hordes of people crossing our southern borders illegally will eventually affect your life adversely. I’ve traveled by car around this country apparently more than most and lived in many, many states over the years. This problem is not by any means limited to California or the southwest states. Small towns across America are having to contend with too many free-loaders and not enough tax dollars to support people who don’t contribute.
One of the best things I’ve experienced lately was visiting Astoria, Queens where my son was living this summer. The neighboorhood was filled with women in head scarves, and men with turbans; there were Russians, and Equadorians and people from Eastern Europe. So, the neighboorhood has garbage on the street, but they, for the most part went about their daily lives in harmony. And I felt completely at home in this diverse community and would live there. They work and have their small businesses (an Equadorian hot dog shop!) and contribute economically. And they are here legally. But, this doesn’t happen when people enter too fast to be assimilated. That’s all I’m asking.
I was a revenue officer. I went out on these cases strictly to collect delinquent tax and/or returns, not to find illegal aliens. I was not required to report them. And as we have all found out different government agencies jealously guard their responsiblities and would it surprise you to know that INS would not have appreciated me referring a case such as this to them? e.g. CIA/FBI problems communicating as one example. It’s kind of like a non-union member taking a union job. but, I could have done it as a private citizen; but, I would take the risk of being accused of using information I had privy to only in my capacity as a revenue officer. Or, I could have done it anonymously, but as I said, I felt sorry for them.
My experience about the SDI/SS disability problem is my friend who had a pear ranch in California. He had an illegal immigrant working for him who “fell down” in the road and injured himself and collected SDI. He told me this was not uncommon. this was the first time I found out illegal immigrants could collect Social Security. This is real life experience, not an internet cite. You seem naive about this system. Unfortunately, some doctors take bribes to cerify people as qualifying for SDI/SS disability. I don’t believe I said it was a “major” problem, just one of the myriad. (and to forestall any other comments about my singling out illegal hispanics, of course lots of other people rip off the system; it’s just that most of them have at least paid something into it).
It is strange how people can accept some internet cite but refuse to accept my direct experience. I guess that just shows how much computers have broadened the gap between real life and the electronic experience.
From that standpoint, we would be better off if there were more illegals, not less; we could solve the whole Social Security shortfall on the backs of illegal immigrants who pay withholding, but never claim any benefits.
Congress did indeed pass legistation by requiring employers to have their employee provide documentation they are in the country legally. You must not have applied for a job recently because you have to provide several forms of proof. And there are fines for not doing so. This has been the law for years.
I should have said my son managed the restaurant. He wasn’t the owner. They were issued W-2’s and in case you don’t know, they can collect social secuity, even if they are illegal. they don’t file tax returns anymore to get the earned income credit or to get their withholding back because the system is able to identify fraudulent social security numbers in a more timely manner. But they used to.
Also, may I remind the audience that from the mid-90s to present, there has been an overall trend DOWN in crime rate across the nation. The alarming rise in violent crime between the 1960s and early 90s preceded the really big boom in immigrant population. Which is truly scant consolation to specific towns or areas blighted by the growth of marginalized populations with all their attendant negative social impact, but my point is that it’s that social marginality (often self-inflicted, for sure), not the mere status of immigration-papers, what creates the increased risk of crime. **“Tookie” was not an illegal alien, he was American. **
QUOTE]
In Freekonomics, the examination of this downward trend is linked to, among other things, the legalization of abortion, the mothers being most likely to have abortions being the ones most likely to produce criminals.
A report by the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy was presented today in Sacramento to the state’s Economic Strategy Panel; The Impact of Immigration on the California Economy (WARNING: .pdf file). I haven’t had an opportunity to read through the entire 64 pages, but the conclusion seems to be that there’s an overall benefit to the state and national economies.
In a way, I find this extremely frustrating, as it discourages government officials from enforcing immigration laws because there seems to be no fiscal or political benefit in doing so. And just because it’s fiscally beneficial to “look the other way,” doesn’t make it any less infuriating that a particular group of people get away with a particular crime just because it benefits us financially to let them continue to do so (that includes the illegal immigrants themselves, as well as the employers who knowingly hire them).
I have no beef with Mexicans – I lived in Mexico for a year and a half – I love the culture and the people. I have no beef with people who wish to immigrate to this country – I imported my husband, going through all the legal channels required (documents, forms, photographs, afidavits of support, letters of intent, interviews, fingerprints, and gobs and gobs of money). My beef lies with people who knowingly break the law, and get a free pass because it’s not to our benefit to force them to comply.
If, as the study seems to indicate, their presence here in typically low-wage jobs isn’t negatively impacting the unemployment rate, the poverty rate, average wage levels or job growth, then, like someone previously said, if there’s that much of a need for this type of labor, then for goodness sake, increase the number of available visas and allow more people legal entry for such jobs. But until such time, enforce the current law, dammit!
That notion is openly questioned by Harvard’s George Borjas who states that any net contribution to social security from illegals is more than offset by what they take out. This was also parroted in the Economist.
Moreover, the article does not take into account what illegals take out of the economy through health care, wage deflation and other social services. Further, it seems to be both morally and economically unsound to premise the future of social security on cheap and illegal labour. Should we now overlook all illegal activities if there is even a hint of economic benefit?
Apples and oranges. I was responding to suezeekay’s claims about the impact of illegals on Social Security. Borjas is speculating about the impact of illegals on the economy as a whole.
Which may be true, but still means that we can NOT pin the general deterioration in quality-of-life of communities since 1960 on “illegal aliens” (indeed, the Freakanomics explanation would imply the “ruining of nice towns” was mostly the work of the Baby-Boomer-generation of the American underclass).
BTW…
I believe it’s 15 million illegal aliens, of whom 12 million are of Latin American origin. Look, I know that’s a pretty overwhelming majority so we can essentially simplify, but still, harping specifically on that one flavor of immigrant does leave a bad taste in the mouth. Just saying.
BTW, historically it had been true that the majority of illegal immigrants in the USA were people who skipped on their temporary visas/permits, but looking at those numbers for post-1990 gives me pause as to what extent this could still be so.