Immigrants' Emergency Care Is Limited By U.S. RuleWhatever one may believe about so-called illegal immigrants and their rights or reasons for being in the U.S., this is just immoral (and remember, it's the policy of the family values spewing Bible thumpers of the Bush Administration.) It effectively imposes a death sentence on illegal immigrants who have the bad fortune to develop cancer. I can extrapolate from there that, Medicare coverage probably would be denied for immigrants' end of life care, including effective pain management.
The federal government has told New York State health officials that chemotherapy, which had been covered for illegal immigrants under a government-financed program for emergency medical care, does not qualify for coverage. The decision sets the stage for a battle between the state and federal governments over how medical emergencies are defined. Read more and be outraged ...
And hey, I imagine it's not much better for any resident or citizen of the U.S. who doesn't have resources to cover their medical care.
Furthemore, I suspect there are a lot of Americans -- liberal and conservative -- who believe that this is as it should be. ("I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps and why should anyone else blah blah blah woof woof ...")
I'm disgusted by such mean-spiritedness. I'd like to hear a presidential candidate talk about rebuilding the safety net that was dismantled under Ray-gun (the Insane Anglo War Lord) and reinstate welfare as we knew it before Hillary's husband ended it. And then I'd like to see that candidate elected!
8 comments:
To be outraged about this, one first and foremost has to believe that an "illegal immigrant" is a PERSON. Those who are attacking these folks are very adept at using the same sort of de-humanizing propaganda as the Nazis did when they began attacking those targeted during the Holocaust.
YES, I just said the other "N" word.
So, who will speak for them?
Start here?:
http://www.afsc.org/immigrants-rights/default.htm
QD -- here in Madison a local immigrant advocacy group has been mounting protests outside of a popular Mexican restaurant, because the owner was forcing his employees -- some of whom are undocumented -- to work off the clock for no pay, and firing them when they complained. I waa talking about it after Meeting with another Friend, who surprised me by saying, "There's no excuse for someone to be undocumented. There are plenty of legal ways to get the U.S. I have no sympathy for undocumented aliens." Wow.
Wow, what's the next step, telling illegal immigrants that they have to take part in medical expreiments if they don't want to be deported. I am loathe to use the N word, but QD's post reminded me of what the N's did to those they determined to be "sub-human"
And --here's another wise thought attributed to Mr. Ether -- a person enters the country illegally, they've broken the law. OK, lots of people break the law. Some knowingly speed in their cars, some cheat on their taxes, etc. etc. Does that make them not entitled to health care or fair labor practices? It's irrelevant.
Poodle Doc, I'll tell you who it was, if you tell me who got their Quaker undies in a bundle over bringing a book into meeting ... Tee hee.
My father's ancestors came over here with William Penn. Literally. My dad looked it up.
The second batch came over after the Highland Clearances.
Those folks probably sounded funny and were a little scary to the people who were already here.
In both cases, no one asked them for a Green Card.
Unless you are one of the remnants of the indigenous people not killed in the genocide that early white settlers perpetrated, you are descended from immigrants.
William Penn? Wow ... but your family was not Quaker?
My dad's mother's side were Quakers, but somewhere along the line, the chain was broken. We do have at least one who was a Quaker in the early 1800s in Pennsylvania, and he was an early abolitionist.
I guess I'm really going back to my roots!
Apparently, I too have Quakers somewhere on my father's mother's side of the family a few generations back. And my sister and I each found our way to Quakerism independently of each other. She married into a weighty historical Quaker family -- the Bartrams, descendants of the botanists.I came to meeting as a young mother during the first Gulf War.
Post a Comment