Illegal Immigrants and Health Care in the US

No. I disagree strongly with that last statement, New Haven. The employer is responsible. If they have not been paying premiums, they should be required to pay them in arrears, with interest. It's what we do here, particularly with Worker's Comp insurance. Take one to a tribunal, and a number of them will ante up before they get caught and have to pay the stiff penalties. Man, do i love taking companies to the tribunals. It's one of the small joys in my life.

I realize that the American economy is not very strong these days, but employers need to be responsible for their employees.

Am I wrong in assuming the employers of the illegal immigrants often know of the "illegal" status of their employees? AND probably under-pay them because of their "illegal" status?
If this is the case, then surely the employers are need to take some responsibility for the people who are supplying them with cheap labour. It must be a very precarious existence for the immigrants.

We get a lot of immigrants come to the UK. Some legit, some not.
If they come into the the UK and are vetted and passed as being Street Legal they get all the benefits that long term and native born residents get. Those that come illegaly can apply for assylum and will be given a place in a hostel and food whilst their application goes thru. Quite where we are meant to put these people on our small overcrowded island I don't know. Perhaps Tony and his Merry Men have a vague idea. What I get pissed of with is that many of these people are getting all moody and turning down job offers, complaining about accomadation, they wanna live in London and complain it's to expensive. What do they want, charity ? So if it's not good enough for them they can always split.
Someone asked about medical resourses and services. No one with or without medical insurance, irrespective of color, race, religion, nationality, residential qualification will be denied medical attention. If a car hits you and injures you, if you get mugged and knifed or have a sudden appendix attack you will get free medical attention, even in the overstretched locations. You will not be left bleeding in the gutter whilst the spanish inquisition interogates you and investigates your background.
Most if not all Brits going overseas will automatically buy full medical insurance to cover all needs. We maybe daft but we are not stupid

I can see that it is inhuman to deny emergency care for anyone - insured or uninsured. However, if an illegal immigrant is hit by a car (let's say it's a hit-and-run, so that the driver cannot be sued by the victim) and is treated and recovers. The hospital bill is $100,000 and the immigrant has no money and there is no way to track him down after he leaves the hospital. The hospital does not write that off and say "oh well", they charge higher rates of all other patients in order to recoup this "freebie". At the end of the day, the cost of emergency care is enormous so that those of us with insurance or who actually pay as we go, are paying for everyone else. Or rather, I should say our employers are - since we expect medical benefits of all our employers. No wonder there is a trend lately for many departments to be outsourced. It is so our employer does not have the burden of paying for these benefits which are growing and growing and I wonder when we will get to the stage where employers refuse to provide benefits any longer and it will be up to each and every individual person to buy their own medical/dental insurances? That's not going to be pretty!

I would also be interested to know about illegal immigrants and pregnancy? Who pays for that hospital bill? This is not an incident caused without their knowledge. Should that kind of treatment be subsidized by the country in which they reside?

BTW - I am a legal immigrant to the U.S. and I believed I had no right to medical care until I purchased medical insurance. I had paid no tax dollars here upon my arrival and knew I would have to work to build up my 'credits' for any type of assistance should I be unlucky enough to lose my job or find myself injured without medical insurance. I do believe in people taking care of themselves and not in hand-outs. I am aware that lots of people are worse off than me and need assistance - I don't deny them that assistance - but I do believe they should repay the help that they receive and work to make their lives better.

Heevenk, with the new social system in the US, the PRWORA, the illegal immigrants do not qualify for any benefits whatsoever and initially their children were to be denied any care also. That was later change, because what do you know, somebody pointed out that people die (New Haven, that's also the problem with your car mechanic metaphore - if your car gets broken, sure noone will fix it for free, but the car will not die, you can even not feed it for days and days and leave it broken. did you ever try that with a human? we are not a commodity). I don't think the healthcare is the problem in this issue, the immigration is. THAT needs to be dealt with, the health care is only a consequence. And the nature and the state of social security and public assistance in this coutry is simply appaling, in comparison to other western countries. i agree with msolga and ehbeth, the employer should take responsibility by law. unfortunately with the power of lobbyism in this country this will never materialize, so again i ask, what to do? let the 'sans papiers' bleed to death? Or ask them in the ER, how New Haven suggests: How are you going to pay? What's that? You can't pay? Then get the hell out of here, but please don't die on the street. Crawl into that dump there so we don't have to spend our taxpayer money to drag you off the street and clean after you.
Singer's article on the moral responsibility of the affluent comes right to mind. But it feels so gooood to be affluent....

I was recently asked for my co-pay, when I went to see my doctor.
I questioned the secretary about having to make a co-payment and she "very nicely", told me to "take it up with the insurance company".

How nice indeed! So what if I didn't have insurance, what would she say then?

Well, yes and no. Immigration & Naturalization requires the employer to check documents (won't go into the array of acceptable documents) within three days of the employee starting work. Now, regardless of circumstances, unless the documents are blatently forged, the employer cannot challenge them because of the potential for discrimination in regard to ethnicity or place of birth. Some employers make a good effort to avoid fines, if nothing else. Others are in deliberate violation.

For what it's worth, the normal document permitting one to work in the US is the Social Security Card. Immigration & Naturalization requires you to certify that you have seen the card or other acceptable document. Now, the Social Security Administration prohibits you from requiring presentation of the same card.

The Social Security Card does not contain a photograph, by the way, though other documents usually will. If this is still making sense, Msolga, let me know.

The problem is both immigration and health care. Remember, we have many Americans who get "free care" at hospitals. That's one reason why so many hospitals are going broke. There's a limit to how much "free care" a hospital can tolerate.

Roger:

Please explain.

By the way, most employers are now paying only a portion of the health premium of working Americans. We have to make up the rest. Also, many retired Americans pay 100% of their supplementary health insurance.

Don't know how to explain this, New Haven. It's kind of like trying to explain tax regulations. The fall back position is that they are bigger than you and they make the rules. It does seem a little odd that the employer is responsible, in a sense, for administering rules, without a legal means of doing so. You have responsibility, but no authority. This is a fairly common occurance, by the way. Personally, I am more amazed at the contradiction between SSA regulations and those of INS.

Yes, you are "making sense", Roger. It's a vexing issue, isn't it?

Yes. It's bad to be trapped between contradictory regulations, especially when each separate government has almost the power of life and death over the business.

<sigh>

When you apply for any job ( mostly ), you have to show your SS card.

the Bush administration as well as other administrations preceding it give lip service to enforcement of illegal immigration knowing full well that much of our economy is dependent on the low cost labour. if our honest intent was to eliminate illegal immigration, it could be accomplished almost immediately by strict enforcement of hiring practices. illegal immigration/labour is the continual wink wink nod nod of politicians.

I don't think that "most our economy is dependent on low cost labor".

Are you suggesting that the labor unions are inpotent today?

new haven, i only know the southwest not new england. but from California to Texas, illegal immigrant labour is a mainstay of the economy.

That must be, because of the farming.