A "bipartisan" proposal on how to handle cost of healthcare for undocumented workers.

[cascadiance]

If you go to the right wing sites, a common complaint about single payer or public option is that it will increase the liability of the American government (and taxpayers) when undocumented residents go to emergency rooms in hospitals seeking health care treatment. Of course these xenophobes would like to see them die instead of paying for their treatment. We of course can't support that as a civilized set of human beings.

But think of the possibilities of using that sentiment more constructively to work for us instead.

Perhaps do the following:

1) Put in single payer (better) or public option so that EVERY American citizen is covered in some fashion, and have an ID (hopefully without too much centralized tracking but more ways to verify its accuracy like currency is today) that will establish that the person is a citizen (or legal resident, whererver we draw the line) of the U.S. to simplify who gets supported by our single payer or public option plan in terms of paying the bills.

2) If an undocumented resident comes in seeking treatment, we go ahead and do so. But instead of forcing the hospital to pay for it, and passing the cost on to us through higher health care costs, or have the single payer plan pay for it, we do something else instead. We have a separate fund created to pay for undocumented workers' healthcare costs. Then the taxpayer doesn't pay a dime. These righties should love that aspect if they aren't just pure racists that want to see them suffer.

3) Where do you fund these expenditures? You set up a separate funding source, that is funded by fines paid for by those that are prosecuted and convicted of hiring undocumented workers. Then arguably they will be forced to do what other legitimate businesses do, and that is pay for their employees' health care.

So then the fines that are levied will be determined by:
1) the cumulative expense of all the costs of health care treatment of undocumented residents are for a given time period.
2) how many companies/individuals are caught and prosecuted for hiring undocumented workers.

Doing it this way will:
1) remove the burden of the taxpayer through the health care plan or the hospitals from footing these bill, lowering our health care costs.
2) increase the penalties and therefore the incentives for businesses/individuals not to hire undocumented workers, which hopefully will help more of our citizens to get employed.
3) if enforcement is still weak as it has been in many areas in the past in going after illegal employers, those few that do get nailed and have to pay HUGE finds will have the incentives to point fingers at others they know are also committing these crimes and not getting prosecuted, adding to the pool of funding, and also increasing the disincentives to hire undocumented workers.
4) ultimately if the increased enforcement of going after illegal employer works as Thom Hartmann feels it should, the undocumented workers should return home, and it would be a part of resolving the illegal immigration problem.

If you emphasize that EVERYONE as a citizen or legal resident should be covered by our domestic plan, that simplifies the credential process in terms of validating them, and making more bullet proof methods of validating them. Hopefully that will also help make sure that everyone is covered.

Some have said that many of the big companies depending on undocumented workers would lobby heavily against this. But I would argue that this might help bring on board many from the right and make an even huger ground swell of grass roots efforts to counteract lobbyist efforts they might try to engage in.

[Mike K]

1. A Practical Solution:

On a Friday evening when no private physicians were available to me I went to a hospital ER with a rapidly worsening infected finger. All I needed was a prescription for penicillin but I had to sit for hours and submit to a long bureaucratic interview before being assigned to a bed (with in infected finger) where I waited for another hour before a harried doctor decided I needed surgery to "open and drain," which I really didn't (I'd had the same problem before). Bottom line: a final bill for $460, when all I needed was a prescription.

If this had happened while I was still in the Marine Corps I would have turned in to Sick Bay where an enlisted-grade medical corpsman would have taken one look and handed me a little box of penicillin tablets. I know because it had happened before. Several times. (I am prone to fingertip infections.)

Taking it a bit further; once while on maneuvers in the Philippines I developed a large and very painful boil on an inner thigh. Another Navy medic, a fellow who was no older than I, gave me a shot of novocaine, lanced the boil, put a drain in it, dressed it and gave me a box of penicillin tablets. He did this in the field -- in a squad tent. Next morning I was back on full duty and the boil was all but gone.

What I'm getting at is I believe there should be walk-in medical facilities set up in certain areas to accommodate the homeless and destitute (and illegals). These facilities could be staffed by former military medical personnel, all of whom are capable of treating the average ER problem and determining when someone requires the attention of a physician. This is exactly the type of situation that existed on every military base I've ever been on -- and if it's good enough for our military personnel it certainly is good enough for anyone who, for one reason or other, cannot obtain access to first class, redundantly costly and time-consuming medical attention.

I personally would have been perfectly satisfied to visit such a walk-in clinic -- and pay for it -- rather than go through the ER hassle described in Paragraph One. I believe that the burden on contemporary medical resources could be significantly relieved by employing former military medics and civilian EMTs to deal with relatively minor complaints which dominate all ER traffic.

[cascadiance]

2. Your idea sounds good to help with the congestion too...

A little over a year ago, I had a kidney stone symptoms get heavy right around 11:00 PM, and had to wind up travelling a few miles to go to a hospital for emergency treatment instead of all of the closer by clinics who had already closed.

I got put in to the waiting room, and my symptoms subsided some, so I was deprioritized quite a bit with many other patients waiting with more severe conditions, and a number of them I think didn't have insurance. I had to wait until 6-7 AM next morning to see the doctor for a few minutes, who verified that my tests showed that I probably had a stone move through my system. Though it got stuck in my urethra and I had to get it removed in an outpatient operation a few months later after urinary tract infections, etc.

I still would like to see that undocumented residents be treated, but that those hiring them be made to pay for it, which I think would help the system in so many ways as I note above. And if everyone could get treated and not have to go to emergency as a last resort, that would also relieve the traffic going in to emergency rooms too.