At what point to do I get sick?
Yet another bleeding heart story about health providers in California having to cut care for illegal immigrants. The freakin state is just about bankrupt, which will end up costing us ALL more money, and we're supposed to feel sorry that Graciela is going to have trouble finding her diabetes medication. Now, I understand that not all fat people get diabetes, and that not all diabetes need fat people, but that lady is far from thin, and I'm thinking step one should be to lay off the damned ho-hos and twinkies.
Never mind that. 5,000 patients per YEAR in one county were "undocumented workers" and are apparently costing the state of California about 6 million dollars, because if I read correctly, that's how much money the county will save if it cuts those people out of it's care loop.
I can understand the math that they may end up having to spend even more money on visits by even sicker immigrants who didn't get the care they needed in the first place (federal law says that if they take federal money they have to give necessary emergency medical treatment to ANYONE who shows up at the clinic/hospital.) but dammit man, I can feel just as sorry for a sick guatamalan in guatamala as I can for a sick guatamalan in california.
And that's the part that pisses me off. Not that a border jumper is almost certainly trying to improve the quality of his/her life, but that people think somehow it's our fault they don't get medical treatment if they're here and they get sick. I'd like to see what kind of diabetes management she'd have had back in Mexico. Likely none, ore she'd still be there, especially after the clinic cuts her off. So what are we doing feeling sorry that she is being cut off for? Do we feel ashamed that we aren't providing care for her whole village back home? And even if we do, are we willing to sacrifice standards of care and financial solvency here in order to provide that care?
Sure, sometimes it's a crappy decision to make and a crappy situation to ponder, but if everything were right and wrong, or easy and difficult, or black and white, well, I could start believing in religion.
Never mind that. 5,000 patients per YEAR in one county were "undocumented workers" and are apparently costing the state of California about 6 million dollars, because if I read correctly, that's how much money the county will save if it cuts those people out of it's care loop.
I can understand the math that they may end up having to spend even more money on visits by even sicker immigrants who didn't get the care they needed in the first place (federal law says that if they take federal money they have to give necessary emergency medical treatment to ANYONE who shows up at the clinic/hospital.) but dammit man, I can feel just as sorry for a sick guatamalan in guatamala as I can for a sick guatamalan in california.
And that's the part that pisses me off. Not that a border jumper is almost certainly trying to improve the quality of his/her life, but that people think somehow it's our fault they don't get medical treatment if they're here and they get sick. I'd like to see what kind of diabetes management she'd have had back in Mexico. Likely none, ore she'd still be there, especially after the clinic cuts her off. So what are we doing feeling sorry that she is being cut off for? Do we feel ashamed that we aren't providing care for her whole village back home? And even if we do, are we willing to sacrifice standards of care and financial solvency here in order to provide that care?
Sure, sometimes it's a crappy decision to make and a crappy situation to ponder, but if everything were right and wrong, or easy and difficult, or black and white, well, I could start believing in religion.
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