American Health Care stuff

[mac_stone]

Questions from Jay Lake.

A brief health care survey from jlake.com behind the cut for my non-political friends who can't stand the idea of talking about this any more. My answers in bold.

Jay asks:

Given the furor over Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s healthcare speech this week, I have a few simple questions for you. I’m interested in answers from all across the political spectrum, and especially in your logic behind them.

(1) Should the proposed public option cover illegal immigrants?
Yes.

(2) Should illegal immigrants be entitled to emergency medical care?
Yes.

(3) Should illegal immigrants be entitled to nonemergency or preventative medical care?
Yes.

(4) Should immigration status be checked at accident scenes or time of ER admission?
No.

(5) What should happen to people refused treatment because of their immigration status?
People should not be refused treatment on those grounds.

(6) What should happen to people unable to demonstrate their immigration status, due to injury or incapacity?
Not a damned thing. They should be treated to the best of the first responders' and the health care providers' abilities.

(7) Should these standards be applied to minor children of illegal immigrants?
Yes.

My rationale and reasoning is simple: It's the right thing to do. It's absolutely in the best interests of any community for people to be healthy and unafraid. And it's fucking evil, immoral, and obscene to tie health care to wages, income, or legal status.
 

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

As someone who came down with strep throat while traveling in Australia I was astonished to find I could receive treatment and medication for a very nominal fee even though I was not Australian.

I'm in total agreement with you on your answers.

[prusik.livejournal.com]

You'd think that these would be the obvious positions to take. I mean, even the evil folks who have decided illegal immigrants are subhuman have a vested interest in keeping them healthy. Either that or they've deluded themselves into thinking that viruses check your legal status before infecting you. These must be the same people who think that AIDS checks your sexual orientation before infecting you. (That was an especially popular delusion during the Reagan Era. Not sure if it still is.)

Sometimes, like Barney Frank said, it's like arguing with a dining room table. More importantly, all this talk of illegal immigrants is derailing. It's a blatant (and sadly effective) attempt to scare the white majority with the notion that brown people exist.

(As an aside, why are people so uptight over illegal immigrants? The "they're taking our jobs" argument doesn't make any sense since they inevitably take jobs that citizens don't want. In the aggregate, they are no more a drain on a community resources than anyone else. Finally, this is a nation founded by illegal immigrants. I don't recall anyone asking the Native Americans for permission to settle here. No one reviles the people who came over on the Mayflower though.)

[mac-stone.livejournal.com]

I do honestly think it's a sort of hyper-aggressive response to fear, for the most part.

And if I had to guess, I think the spiel about "self-reliance" is embraced by so many because, at heart, it tells us it's okay to act like selfish assholes -- and a lot of otherwise rational human beings are seduced by that. It makes it okay to not care about other human beings, not be involved in your community, and justifies cheating on your taxes, too, for that matter.

[elsmi.livejournal.com]

And it means that 1) I'm doing okay, and therefore I can conclude that I must be inherently awesome, 2) if he's not doing okay, it must be because he isn't awesome, but I'm awesome (see previous), so whatever horrible thing happened to him will never happen to me. QED!

[mac-stone.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's weirdly connected to the old prosperity doctrine heresy. Bleh.