The healthcare tab our president and Congress refuse to admit

[Graphic by Kay B. Day copyright/2009]As the federal government urges the socialized medicine door open a little further, the president, Congress and advocacy groups are not talking about one healthcare tab that may continue to climb. Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, need medical care when they're in the US.

With the debate about the uninsured, it’s time to pay attention to a statement from an expert who called it like it is for USA Today in January: “Steven Camarota of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies says offering non-emergency Medicaid to illegal immigrants would be more expensive than leaving them uninsured and in need of occasional hospital care. In those cases, hospitals lose money, and taxpayers pick up the tab…‘Either you enforce the law and don't have so many illegals, or you shut up about the cost,’ he says. “

That’s exactly what Congress and our president have done. Mum's the word about the cost. Every time a politician says there are 45,000 Americans without insurance, they’re omitting a meaningful fact. The US has absorbed more immigrants, legal and illegal, than at any time in the past 80 years.

Camarota wrote in a report for The Center for Immigration Studies: “Looking first at the raw numbers, the Census Bureau data we analyzed showed that the nation's immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached nearly 38 million in March of this year. This is the highest number in the nation's history. No nation has ever attempted to incorporate 38 million newcomers into its society. As a share of the population, one in eight U.S. residents is now an immigrant (legal and illegal), the highest level in 80 years. About one-third of immigrants are illegal aliens. Moreover, 1.5 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) continue to arrive each year.”

Republicans and Democrats have refused outright to deal with immigration laws at the federal level. Politicians tiptoe around federal law because lobbyists want cheap labor for industry, elitists want cheap labor for domestics and advocacy groups quite naturally want to fill the landscape with their preferred culture. That last is a trait as old as man, by the way.

USA Today pointed out the Republican-controlled Congress in 2003, “appropriated $1 billion over four years for hospitals and other health care providers that serve illegal immigrants. More than 15,000 providers have registered for payments, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.”

Compassion aside, that means the taxpayer picked up the tab for immigrant healthcare.

States have traditionally borne the medical costs as well as costs for education, law enforcement and entitlement costs for immigrants.

Dave Patten, at NewsMax, quoted a Rasmussen poll about providing healthcare for undocumented immigrants: “An overwhelming 80 percent of U.S. voters oppose proposals for government-backed health-care plans for illegal immigrants…According to the U.S. Census Bureau, over 10 million illegal immigrants in the United States lack health insurance. That's about 22 percent of the 46 million people in America who are without insurance.”

What this voter would appreciate is the truth. If Congress and President Barack Obama want healthcare for all immigrants, legal and illegal, come right out and say so. At least acknowledge you want taxpayer money for this. We won't hold our breath waiting for establishment media to ask questions.

Further encroachment into healthcare by the federal government will ultimately dilute care, introduce serious rationing and increase the cost of private insurance. Washington knows someone will have to pick up the tab. And once again, those who want to keep control over the most personal matter in their lives will pay a double tab—to the insurer and to the tax man.