5 ms·

Because the alternative is hospitals treating them anyway and sending out bills that will never get paid - ultimately costing society even more. Unless you act

Because the alternative is hospitals treating them anyway and sending out bills that will never get paid - ultimately costing society even more. Unless you actually think illegal immigrants should just be left to die when they have medical issues? I sure hope not.

taobility 8y ago
if so, why should any patient pay the bill to the hospital?
- techslave 8y ago
  "never get paid" means: by the care recipient. obviously someone pays ... it's spread across all who do pay their bills. and you should pay your bill because the hospital will sue you for it. it's only when the debt is finally uncollectible that it gets absorbed.
- amerine 8y ago
  Because as a society we know it’s cheaper to treat early and often rather than deal with emergencies 80% of the time. Also, I agree with you, but likely from a different place. No individual should be paying a hospital bill, it should be included in a tax on my income. If I have lots of income I pay for lots of people, maybe an astounding amount, if I have little to no income I depend on my wealthy neighbors to cover me. Seems to me like the only way to go, that or I guess the rich get eaten.
  - taobility 8y ago
    following this logic, we shouldn't get salary from our daily work. Everyone is working for the country, and the country would take care you everything, education, healthcare, housing etc. Yes, this is called communism. And China has tried that in 1950s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward), which is even better, that you don't even need to cook for yourself, as the community would provide a public cafe for free. But it proved that's not working.
    - twtw 8y ago
      This slippery slope argument is valueless. It's perfectly possible to have socialized healthcare without communism.
      - taobility 8y ago
        why healthcare is different with housing, education and food? If I don't have safe place to live, enough food to eat, I will get sick inevitable.
- zzzeek 8y ago
  why should I pay my income taxes when someone living below the poverty line doesn't pay any?
sonnyblarney 8y ago
The alternatives are sending them home - or - giving them citizenship. Suppose you do the later - whoops (!) - as soon as the workers are citizens, and employers have to pay full benefits, and worry about unions ... then they'll dump such new citizens and hire actual illegal workers! Point being: the price of that cheap labour is a function of their illegal status more than anything. It's a false dynamic. Just enforce basic laws. Americans will do many of those jobs for higher wages, the jobs that can't support higher wages will leave for Mexico and help them out down there, even in that scenario, surpluses come back to the US as well. The real 'long term' answer is just to enforce basic citizenship and employment laws. The answer on healthcare is much more complicated, but probably has more to do with regulating prices etc. than it does expanding medicare/medicaid, which is actually very inefficient compared to other nations, because prices are so high. Single payer, as someone below mentioned, gives the gov the power to negotiate better deals, but you don't necessarily need single payer for that. I'm generally against any kind of real socialization because it always ends up a mess, but in healthcare it seems it's going to be needed to stop the '100 aspirin' problem, among others. More medicare just means more '$100 aspirin' unless it's combined with some other, heavier kind of action. I hope it works out.
- nerdponx 8y ago
  One issue with this approach is that enforcing labor laws is already difficult.
  - losteric 8y ago
    What about offering a reward to unregistered immigrants in exchange for ratting out their employers? Works for other types of illegal labor... maybe a slice of the fine and the option of fast-tracked citizenship. Anyway, policing businesses will always be easier than policing individuals... smaller numbers, immobile, already registered with the state, and they have stronger incentives to obey the law.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    It's very easy to enforce the law, it only takes a little bit of political will.
throwawayunodos 8y ago
Surely not. However, once they are treated and are healthy why should they not be reported to authorities so that proper law can take course. I think we should really revisit this whole notion of "sanctuary" state/city/etc, it just doesn't make sense.

taobility 8y ago

if so, why should any patient pay the bill to the hospital?

techslave 8y ago
"never get paid" means: by the care recipient. obviously someone pays ... it's spread across all who do pay their bills. and you should pay your bill because the hospital will sue you for it. it's only when the debt is finally uncollectible that it gets absorbed.
amerine 8y ago
Because as a society we know it’s cheaper to treat early and often rather than deal with emergencies 80% of the time. Also, I agree with you, but likely from a different place. No individual should be paying a hospital bill, it should be included in a tax on my income. If I have lots of income I pay for lots of people, maybe an astounding amount, if I have little to no income I depend on my wealthy neighbors to cover me. Seems to me like the only way to go, that or I guess the rich get eaten.
- taobility 8y ago
  following this logic, we shouldn't get salary from our daily work. Everyone is working for the country, and the country would take care you everything, education, healthcare, housing etc. Yes, this is called communism. And China has tried that in 1950s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward), which is even better, that you don't even need to cook for yourself, as the community would provide a public cafe for free. But it proved that's not working.
  - twtw 8y ago
    This slippery slope argument is valueless. It's perfectly possible to have socialized healthcare without communism.
    - taobility 8y ago
      why healthcare is different with housing, education and food? If I don't have safe place to live, enough food to eat, I will get sick inevitable.
zzzeek 8y ago
why should I pay my income taxes when someone living below the poverty line doesn't pay any?

sonnyblarney 8y ago

The alternatives are sending them home - or - giving them citizenship. Suppose you do the later - whoops (!) - as soon as the workers are citizens, and employers have to pay full benefits, and worry about unions ... then they'll dump such new citizens and hire actual illegal workers! Point being: the price of that cheap labour is a function of their illegal status more than anything. It's a false dynamic. Just enforce basic laws. Americans will do many of those jobs for higher wages, the jobs that can't support higher wages will leave for Mexico and help them out down there, even in that scenario, surpluses come back to the US as well. The real 'long term' answer is just to enforce basic citizenship and employment laws. The answer on healthcare is much more complicated, but probably has more to do with regulating prices etc. than it does expanding medicare/medicaid, which is actually very inefficient compared to other nations, because prices are so high. Single payer, as someone below mentioned, gives the gov the power to negotiate better deals, but you don't necessarily need single payer for that. I'm generally against any kind of real socialization because it always ends up a mess, but in healthcare it seems it's going to be needed to stop the '100 aspirin' problem, among others. More medicare just means more '$100 aspirin' unless it's combined with some other, heavier kind of action. I hope it works out.

nerdponx 8y ago
One issue with this approach is that enforcing labor laws is already difficult.
- losteric 8y ago
  What about offering a reward to unregistered immigrants in exchange for ratting out their employers? Works for other types of illegal labor... maybe a slice of the fine and the option of fast-tracked citizenship. Anyway, policing businesses will always be easier than policing individuals... smaller numbers, immobile, already registered with the state, and they have stronger incentives to obey the law.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  It's very easy to enforce the law, it only takes a little bit of political will.

throwawayunodos 8y ago

Surely not. However, once they are treated and are healthy why should they not be reported to authorities so that proper law can take course. I think we should really revisit this whole notion of "sanctuary" state/city/etc, it just doesn't make sense.