The health care mess in the United States is a top concern of voters. Too many Americans find that, despite their best efforts, they are unable to provide quality health care for their families. Too many Americans live in fear that an illness might leave them destitute. Too many Americans spend years sacrificing to pay skyrocketing premiums only to discover that, when the need arises, their policies offer protections that are next to worthless.
Most of us agree that it's simply not right that so many Americans, sincerely trying their best to provide for their families, are at the mercy of a phalanx of greedy insurance companies, medical malpractice lawyers, health care corporations, and other profiteers that have used decades of influence in Washington to institutionalize their chomp hold on the public jugular.
What would Americans think, then, of a member of Congress who introduced legislation, not to improve health care in the United States, but to improve health care in Mexico?
Insane? Drunk? Unworthy of public office?
What would Americans think, then, of a bill introduced in Congress that required federal agencies to come up with a plan, not to expand health coverage in the United States, but to expand health coverage in Mexico?
Impossible? Unthinkable? Wildly irresponsible?
What would Americans think, then, of the motives of a senator, who not only introduced a bill to improve Mexico's health care system and extend coverage to a growing population of 120 million people, but gave health insurance companies the right to help devise the plan?
Blatantly corrupt? Grossly indifferent to the well-being of the American people? Downright treasonous?
Unbelievable as it may seem, the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005 contained a provision giving insurance companies the right to help devise a plan for extending US health care to Mexico (Sec. 1004. BINATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE AND HEALTH INSURANCE).
Even more unbelievable, the senator who sponsored the bill is not on the verge of being thrown out of office for this odious piece of legislation. No, the senator who introduced the bill, Senator John McCain of Arizona, is on the verge of locking up the Republican nomination to be our next president.
Damn! How come you didn't know that before you voted for John McCain on Tuesday, you ask?
You've been watching the all-day-every-day TV news coverage of the primaries.
You've been reading your local newspaper's daily coverage of the races for the parties' nominations.
Valley R
Geez, how's he going to pay for that? Hopefully by eliminating WIC, SSI, and Circuit.
raichasays
If private insurance companies want the right to do business in Mexico and reduce the numbers of Mexicans coming to American emergency rooms for health care, that's alright by me.
DAR
Don't even get me started on that bill. Did you try searching it for the word 'peonage'? There is a statute of limitations there that would prohibit prosecution of illegal immigrants who came IN THE FUTURE and stayed 10 years. Talk about incentive.
I think if he pays for it out of his own pocket, it is generous. If he plans to take it from us to pay for it, it is theft.
luvmykids
This will never happen. He may propose it, but it would never get through the other government affiliates. Most would say this is absurd!! And it is!! And I didn't vote for that putz!!
Victoria H
HE CANOT DO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, I THINK WHAT HEMEANT WAS FOR NSURANCE COMPANIES GET ESTSABLISHED IN MEXICO, AS CORPORATIONS, IN MEX. THE HEALTHE INSURNCE ARE OWNED BYUS COMPANIES, HE IS NOT GOING TO GIV MEXICO MEDICL ISURNCE FOR FREE, RED AGAIN, AND THINK
heyteach
"TITLE X – Promoting Access to Health Care
Hospitals will continue to be reimbursed for emergency care of undocumented immigrants under the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003. The end date will be 2011 instead of 2008.
H-5A and H-5B workers are now included in the list of patients for whom hospitals can seek reimbursement.
Physician J-1 waiver programs cannot discriminate against hospitals in their criteria for determining eligible facilities [editor's note: this is presumably targeted at the largely non-functioning HHS J-1 waiver program which bars hospitals from applying]
HHS shall contract with the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (the "Institute") to study binational public health infrastructure and health insurance efforts. Input shall be sought from border health experts and insurance companies. A report on this study shall be issued a year after entering into the contract with the Institute which shall include recommendations on ways to expand or improve binational public health infrastructure and insurance efforts."
http://www.visalaw.com/05may4/3may405.html
I don't think that exactly translates into giving health care to Mexico.
RIGHT NOW, what US policy is is totally bogus and it's crippling certain areas of the country--literally shutting down their health care options:
"Unlike big governments, small community hospitals cannot run deficits forever. The Copper Queen's shortfall from treating illegal aliens grows each year. This year it will be about $ 450,000, bringing the total for the past few years to $ 1.4 million. With each money-losing year, a tiny piece of the 14-bed hospital dies. When that happens, the entire community suffers. Dickson's most agonizing decision came when he was forced to shutter the long-term-care unit. "It was the only place the elderly could go," he says. "If someone had dementia, we had a room for them." But no more. Now if people who spent their life in Bisbee need elder care, they must leave the area. "The more free care we give," Dickson says, "the more we have to ration what's left."
Dickson emphasizes that not all the free care is going to illegal aliens passing through on their way to other states. About half goes to Mexicans who use the Copper Queen as their personal emergency-care facility. In effect, the hospital, which performs general surgery, has become the trauma center for that stretch of northern Mexico. If an ambulance pulls up to the border-crossing point near Bisbee and announces "compassionate entry," the border patrol waves it through, and the Copper Queen is compelled to treat the patient. It is one more program that Congress mandates but does not pay for. "If you make me treat someone," says Dickson, "then you need to pay me. You can't have unfunded mandates in a small hospital." Although the Medicare drug act that passed last year provides for modest payments to hospitals that treat illegal aliens, Dickson says there is a catch that the U.S. government has yet to figure out. "How do I document an undocumented alien? How am I going to prove I rendered that care? They have no Social Security number, no driver's license."
The limits of compassion are also being tested on the Tohono O'odham Nation. About twice the size of Delaware, the tribe's reservation shares 65 miles of border with Mexico. Like the residents of the small Arizona towns just to the east, the Native Americans, many of whom live without running water and electricity, are overwhelmed. The Nation's hospital is often packed with migrants who become dehydrated while crossing the scorching desert, where summertime temperatures reach upwards of 110°. The undermanned tribal police force helps the border patrol round up as many as 1,500 illegals a day. "If this were happening in any other city or part of the country," says Vivian Juan-Saunders, Tohono O'odham chairwoman, "it would be considered a crisis."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,995145-7,00.html
So doing SOMETHING to see about providing care on the Mexican side WOULD help us out somewhat. We already pour countless millions into Mexico's coffers annually--if it provided a benefit for us that would be an improvement.
I am NOT supporting this McCain-Kennedy nonsense, but I do think this aspect of it is not as bad as you think it is.
Orignal From: Do you think it's OK that McCain wants to give health care to the entire country of Mexico?
Post a Comment