Medicine
Pay a little now, or a lot later. It's that simple. In a previous blog post about irrational health care bills, I wrote:
"Illegal immigrants get sick too, and they end up going to U.S. emergency rooms when their health problems become too serious to ignore. The high-risk premature delivery that could have been prevented by routine prenatal care, and the heart attack that could have been prevented by controlling blood pressure and cholesterol levels (which primary care does very well and cheaply, given the opportunity), instead become expensive, catastrophic emergency visits, which are charged to your hospital, and therefore your health insurance, and therefore, you. Immigration policy is an important and divisive issue, but it should be separated from the issue of public health and the health reform debate."
Unfortunately, it appears that the only issue in health care reform that both liberals and conservatives actually agree on is that illegal immigrants should be excluded from coverage. This is a terrible mistake, regardless of one's political or ideological leanings. If we hope to ever stop undocumented workers from using hospital emergency rooms as their primary source of (overpriced, poorly coordinated) primary care, then every person living in the U.S. must have access to an affordable family physician under health care reform. (Notice that I wrote affordable, not free.)
A recent article in Newsweek argues that insuring illegal immigrants could actually drive down the cost of medical premiums, since this population is typically younger and has fewer chronic medical problems than American citizens. Also, requiring all workers to be insured regardless of immigration status would reduce or eliminate the income disparity that currently makes it attractive to hire undocumented immigrants, rather than citizens, for certain jobs.
Yes, Rep. Joe Wilson is an idiot, but I actually hope he was right - health reform will be better off if President Obama was lying about illegal immigrants not being included in health care reform.
- Alabama, “illegals”, And Hate: We Must Take Back The Narrative
The state of Alabama has outdone Arizona with an anti-immigrant law that is even more anti-human in its degrading approach to and impact on people who are immigrants, visitors, and native Americans with Spanish surnames or who “look” Hispanic. H.B....
- Immigration And The Us: Happy New Year
. I sit in Arizona at Christmas, finishing Dennis Lehane’s novel “The Given Day”[1]. Set in 1919 in Boston and culminating in the landmark Boston police strike of that year, Lehane documents the “red scare” of that period, accompanied by the...
- The Sharp End Of Ideology
. This powerful piece was written by Robert Ferrer, MD, MPH, who has previously written guest blogs. It is too bad that the pundits and policy wonks will not see it. On any given day there are five to ten of them on our hospital service. In the room that...
- Immigrant And Refugee Health
The New York Times (March 29, 2008) has a front-page story about the challenges faced by clinics caring for large numbers of immigrants and refugees.[1] It focuses on the International Clinics at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN, and...
- Welcome To My Blog
I've started this Blog as a medium for sharing my thoughts on health and health care. Obviously, health is a personal issue, but these days health care is a very public issue subject to heated debate, especially in my home town of Washington, DC....
Medicine
Health care for illegal immigrants
Pay a little now, or a lot later. It's that simple. In a previous blog post about irrational health care bills, I wrote:
"Illegal immigrants get sick too, and they end up going to U.S. emergency rooms when their health problems become too serious to ignore. The high-risk premature delivery that could have been prevented by routine prenatal care, and the heart attack that could have been prevented by controlling blood pressure and cholesterol levels (which primary care does very well and cheaply, given the opportunity), instead become expensive, catastrophic emergency visits, which are charged to your hospital, and therefore your health insurance, and therefore, you. Immigration policy is an important and divisive issue, but it should be separated from the issue of public health and the health reform debate."
Unfortunately, it appears that the only issue in health care reform that both liberals and conservatives actually agree on is that illegal immigrants should be excluded from coverage. This is a terrible mistake, regardless of one's political or ideological leanings. If we hope to ever stop undocumented workers from using hospital emergency rooms as their primary source of (overpriced, poorly coordinated) primary care, then every person living in the U.S. must have access to an affordable family physician under health care reform. (Notice that I wrote affordable, not free.)
A recent article in Newsweek argues that insuring illegal immigrants could actually drive down the cost of medical premiums, since this population is typically younger and has fewer chronic medical problems than American citizens. Also, requiring all workers to be insured regardless of immigration status would reduce or eliminate the income disparity that currently makes it attractive to hire undocumented immigrants, rather than citizens, for certain jobs.
Yes, Rep. Joe Wilson is an idiot, but I actually hope he was right - health reform will be better off if President Obama was lying about illegal immigrants not being included in health care reform.
- Alabama, “illegals”, And Hate: We Must Take Back The Narrative
The state of Alabama has outdone Arizona with an anti-immigrant law that is even more anti-human in its degrading approach to and impact on people who are immigrants, visitors, and native Americans with Spanish surnames or who “look” Hispanic. H.B....
- Immigration And The Us: Happy New Year
. I sit in Arizona at Christmas, finishing Dennis Lehane’s novel “The Given Day”[1]. Set in 1919 in Boston and culminating in the landmark Boston police strike of that year, Lehane documents the “red scare” of that period, accompanied by the...
- The Sharp End Of Ideology
. This powerful piece was written by Robert Ferrer, MD, MPH, who has previously written guest blogs. It is too bad that the pundits and policy wonks will not see it. On any given day there are five to ten of them on our hospital service. In the room that...
- Immigrant And Refugee Health
The New York Times (March 29, 2008) has a front-page story about the challenges faced by clinics caring for large numbers of immigrants and refugees.[1] It focuses on the International Clinics at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN, and...
- Welcome To My Blog
I've started this Blog as a medium for sharing my thoughts on health and health care. Obviously, health is a personal issue, but these days health care is a very public issue subject to heated debate, especially in my home town of Washington, DC....