Colorado - Illegal Immigrants no longer eligble for state health care

Nurses Activism

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Effective Aug. 1, state services, including the state health plans and welfare, will no longer be given to illegal immigrants in Colorado. This law, enacted by Gov. Bill Owens, in considered the 'toughest in the nation' and other states are expected to follow suit.

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=5bd32d4f-0abe-421a-0198-a704d3f07a3a&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

No offense is intended, but I wholly agree with this new law. I am from California, a state that has been financially devastated by providing costly services such as healthcare, education, and social programs to illegal immigrants.

Six years ago I was a grocery store clerk in a city that had a large immigrant population. I would cash the payroll checks of these individuals who always provided a resident alien card as a form of identification. The groceries would be paid for with food stamps, the baby formula and cereals would be paid for with WIC vouchers, and a welfare check would be cashed at the end of the entire transaction. The aforementioned scenario would occur multiple times throughout my workshifts at the supermarket. My honest opinion is that illegal immigrants utilize more services than they reasonably pay for.

1 in 4 workers in the US are classified as working poor.

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You are right on! HospitalsERs will still have to treat "illegals" that come in for health care. We have a notice posted in our ER that no one will be turned away because of an inability to pay for health care.

I think though that the new law is designed to reduce the number of "illegals" that apply for welfare and medicaid type programs. At my hospital, many illegals that come to the ER give fake names and fake dates of birth. One guy showed up twice in the same day with different names and birth dates...his bad luck to get the same triage RN.

Either way, the hospital won't get paid...by the patient or the government.

Consequently, more ER's will probably shut down. Then everybody loses.

Nevertheless, the line has to be drawn somewhere. I often wonder how many illegals would cross the border if all of these free services weren't available. To a certain extent, free healthcare, free schools, etc. have got to be driving illegal immigration as much as anything else.

Afterall, they're being paid slave wages. If everything else wasn't free ... maybe it wouldn't be as worthwhile to come here.

:typing

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Part of the solution to the immigration problem is to demand that our trade agreements (NAFTA, CAFTA etc.) require our trading partners to have comparable work, environmental, safety and health regulations. This would have the dual benefit of leveling the playing field for our workers AND improving the situation for workers in other countries.

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On point, WE allow illegals to come here for a stated purpose: to do the work Americans will not do at that price. We are shamelessly taking advantage of their home situations.

How unethical is it to recruit people here so that we can treat them WORSE then we would treat any of our own (who are protected by minimum wage laws.)? We could close our borders almost immediately. We do not, and that is a political decision.

Who says Americans wouldn't do the work? I agree it is unethical to recruit them and then maltreat them. Blame it on greedy business owners.

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I agree. If we enforce the labor laws regarding wages and hours of work by prosecuting employers they will be more likely to hire citizens and legal residents. Citizend should not put up with their employer breaking the law.

It would be much cheaper and more effective to actively hold the employers responsible for following the law. Molly Ivins has some great columns posted over at alternet.org about immigration and reform.

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The catch 22 on this is, hospitals still have to treat them, so they are going to start losing a horrendous amount of money if they do not get compensated.

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Either way, the hospital won't get paid...by the patient or the government.

So who WILL pay for their ER visits? It seems the lawmakers need to pass another law saying no illegals will receive ER care, either, even for life-threatening ills.

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I am not advocating an open door for immigration but I do think that we need to provide basic medical care for people. The demand for illegal workers is driven by business. Make it very expensive for businesses to be caught hiring illegals and we will reduce the number of immigrants.

Please define "basic".

And tell me how you are going to tell the parent of a sick newborn, for example, that surgery to correct a heart hole is not "basic", or something similar.

"Basic" means something for which we have established, effective treatment? Or does it mean "vaccinations and good luck"? A Pap and a mammogram but no Ca surgery or chemo? An appendectomy? Tx of compound fracture but not a simple one? Just trying to figure this "basic" thing out.

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Who says Americans wouldn't do the work? I agree it is unethical to recruit them and then maltreat them. Blame it on greedy business owners.

In SoCal where, of course, we have a horrendous illegal problem ... the local news did a story on a construction project in the middle of Compton. Compton is an African American city where there are many impoverished residents who need jobs.

Nevertheless, every single construction worker was an illegal from Mexico. The black community was up in arms about it because, obviously, they need those jobs. But the contractor would have to pay legal and, consequently, higher wages so ... they hired illegals instead.

So, in that case at least, Americans did want those jobs. The contractor just didn't want to pay more.

When you look at how much housing prices have gone up in California, you realize that illegals have done nothing but increase contractor profits. With housing prices doubling and tripling in the last five years, there's plenty of money to pay decent wages and still make a substantial profit. But the contractors are simply greedy.

I can't tell you how many illegals are working in construction just in my neighborhood alone.

:typing

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Specializes in L & D; Postpartum.

The argument that the illegals will do jobs Americans won't do only holds so much water with me. For example, here, many of the farm workers are illegals, and they work hard for low wages. However, it is an unskilled job. Part of the problem is that unskilled Americans think they are entitled to high wages to do unskilled jobs.

One popular, and very liberal, talk show host here recently said he felt the problem would be solved if the minimum wage for those odious jobs was raised to, say $22.00 per hour. Then the Americans would certainly apply for them.

I wasn't able to call in then, but I did email him to say that the unskilled workers still wouldn't get those jobs because they'd all be taken up fresh out of school teachers, nurses, pilots and a score of others, all of whom have spent years and thousands of dollars getting their qualifications, but still don't make $22.00 an hour at their first job. What exactly would that solve, and what kind of koolaid was he drinking?

Many of these illegals, and others too, work hard at their jobs, but if the job is an unskilled job that requires no education, then they should not expect a high wage for that. That's the difference, I believe, between the Hispanic workers and the American ones.

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Many of these illegals, and others too, work hard at their jobs, but if the job is an unskilled job that requires no education, then they should not expect a high wage for that. That's the difference, I believe, between the Hispanic workers and the American ones.

Yeah ... but you're missing a big part of the picture. For illegals, this is a high wage because the value of their currencies is so low compared to ours. Many of them send that money back home where a dollar goes a lot further than anything they earn with currency in their home country. And a lot of them travel back and forth also.

Plus ... they get free healthcare, free schools, welfare, Medicaid ... all kinds of benefits they'd never get at home.

In many ways, this is an unskilled workforce getting higher paying jobs with benefits because the wages, free healthcare, etc. is actually better than anything else they get back home.

:typing

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Specializes in L & D; Postpartum.
Yeah ... but you're missing a big part of the picture. For illegals, this is a high wage because the value of their currencies is so low compared to ours. Many of them send that money back home where a dollar goes a lot further than anything they earn with currency in their home country. And a lot of them travel back and forth also.

:typing

Oh, I don't think I'm missing the point at all. My point is that when Americans lose the "I am entitled" attitude and understand that for a high wage they must offer high skills, and when the public (including politicians) begin enforcing that as well, then the unskilled might begin to understand that their skill level is only going to get them a low-paying job.

I know that the illegals send lots of money back home and as long as society allows, why shouldn't they? Once it becomes harder to do that (as it looks like it will be in Colorado) that will change.

But don't expect all the poor, whiney unemployed people you see on every street corner (I actually witnessed a change of shift the other day) to go rushing off to the fields to get those jobs. They still think they should be paid big bucks no matter what.

Along with all those "rights" come obligations, but that part seems to be conveniently forgotten by many, and far too many politicians are leading the pack on that march.

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Oh, I don't think I'm missing the point at all. My point is that when Americans lose the "I am entitled" attitude and understand that for a high wage they must offer high skills, and when the public (including politicians) begin enforcing that as well, then the unskilled might begin to understand that their skill level is only going to get them a low-paying job.

There's plenty of entitlement and whining going on with the illegals as well. Look at that one day march/walkout. They demanded "rights" as illegals. Forget about all the people standing in line who are going through the process of getting legal, which takes years. These people want to cut in line and get "legal" with no effort whatsoever. If that isn't an "entitled attitude" ... I don't know what is.

As far as skills ... some of that is a myth also. Look at RN's. We're educated, there's a labor shortage and you can't replace us with anybody off the street. You'd think wages would be through the roof, but they're not.

REAL RN wages, after you adjust for inflation, have only gone up about $350 a year for the last 25 years. And most of that $350 has probably been eaten up by increased employee contributions for health benefits and such.

I'm in California where the shortage is acute yet ... I see hospital after hospital cutting pensions and other benefits. It's unbelievable. The only way I'll get a really good salary and benefits is by going to work for a union shop. In California, RN's pretty much have to unionize to get any real wage increases and benefits. Being "skilled" alone... even with a labor shortage ... doesn't get the job done.

The powers that be have been telling us that we have to get skilled to make a decent wage but ... it's not that simple. There are many forces at play keeping American wages low that go far beyond any sense of entitlement.

:typing

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