First of all, "some guy Morris" is Dick Morris, a very famous political strategist. Secondly, your statement regarding healthcare is fatally flawed. Let me make an analogy. Let's say you're lifting weights and the max you can bench press is 250 lbs. What would adding another 30 lbs do? It could cause irreversible physical damage to you. With healthcare, if the system's already stretched thin as is, what do you think adding 12 million people to it instantly would do? It would make the situation for all of us much worse. Getting more doctors and hospitals into the system doesn't happen overnight, so you'd stretch service for people who are here legally even thinner. Thus you're jeopardizing everyone's health for the sake of "caring" for people who broke the law to get here. It's very easy to paint those of us who don't support healthcare for illegal immigrants as "bad guys" or "heartless". Dumbing down the argument to that level does a great disservice to the country as a whole. The country doesn't want to pick up the tab for illegals and ration our healthcare even further. I think we have a right to spend our money how we see fit, don't you?
im sorry. i didn't know you spoke on behalf of the nation. no one is saying pass this against the will of the majority. yet the majority is heartless if they don't believe in healthcare for all.
12 million illegals is less than 5% of America. Who cares. Health care would be better served by arbitrarily denying health care to other, much larger and more troublesome groups, such as fat people, smokers, red meat eaters, drug users, alcohol users, drunk drivers, race car drivers, stuntmen, football players, old people, etc, etc... But thats not going to happen. SO F IT. LETS JUST CURE PEOPLE THAT ARE SICK REGARDLESS OF WHICH GROUP THEY ARE IN. PLEASE.
I don't have enough time this morning to go mine for polls regarding whether people support healthcare for illegal immigrants, but I'll leave you with these tidbits for now: Sixty-five percent of adults nationwide would like to see the number of illegal aliens currently in this country reduced. CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll; Jan. 14-17, 2008 About nine in 10 Southwesterners ages 31 and older consider illegal immigration to be a serious problem in the Southwest; two-thirds say it’s a “very” serious problem. In contrast, seven in 10 young adults ages 18 to 30 consider the issue a serious problem with 37 percent saying it’s a “very” serious problem. Arizona State University-Southwest Poll PDF; November 6 - December 19, 2007 Compared to other problems facing the country, eighty-one percent of registered voters nationwide say illegal immigration is an important problem facing the country. Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll; November 30-December 3, 2007 Sixty-six percent of Americans polled said they believe [a]llowing illegal immigrants to remain in this country undermines respect for the law. American Solutions "Border Security Survey" PDF; August 27-29, 2007 http://www.numbersusa.com/interests/publicop.html So if the majority of people in the country think illegal immigration is a problem and that they want it reduced/eliminated, do you think they'll support giving free healthcare to people whom they believe broke the law and are part of a "very serious problem"? Oh and even though it's unscientific, look at the poll here. This is a place where I'd say we have a roughly 50/50 split between liberals and conservatives, maybe even slightly more liberals. Yet 70+% are against giving illegals free healthcare. I guess the majority of people on this forum are "heartless". What a shame...
Here you go... Americans would limit illegals' access to government services, such as driver’s licenses (sixty-nine percent not allow), health care/food stamps (seventy-five percent not allow), and attending public schools (fifty-one percent not allow). Time Magazine/SRBI Survey, March 29-30, 2006 From the same link I just posted...
Sure, I think we should spend our money as we see fit; my vote is to spend it on illegal aliens. But, I think your statement regarding my statement is flawed. I don't think we're instantly adding 12 million people. Those people have always been in the system, but have not had adequate care (some here have already made the argument that we're already paying for their care in ERs). If that burden will break the system, it is already broken. Are we short on doctors and hospitals? Probably. But, how do you incentivize the system to supply doctors and hospitals if you constrain demand for them? If your only objection is that we don't have capacity, then we're essentially in agreement -- build capacity and service everyone. In the short-term, it may hurt a little. Citizens will pay more and receive worse treatment in the short-term to pay for services rendered to illegal aliens. I'm fine with that. I already subsidize old people, fat people, motorcyclists, smokers, and a host of other people who extract more value than they put in. It's the right and humane thing to do that I think everyone should do if they can achieve it. I think we can achieve it, and therefore should execute it. You're right, most people likely agree to deny care to illegal aliens and, being a democracy, that's probably the way we'll go. But, my vote is to provide care for everyone.
You are very uninformed on this issue. First, - do you think the state of texas pays for its services with income taxes? Or do you just think illegal aliens are exempt from sales taxes (or pass throughs of property taxes)? Obviously they are not - so accordingly billions of dollars are paid into the system by illegal aliens here and here. Second - do you realize how much money undocumented workers pay in to the social security and medicare system every year, without any rights to drawdown or payout at retirement?Again, another number in the billions. Good luck keeping the thing afloat without it. Finally - why do we assume that illegal aliens don't pay federal income tax? There's a lot of evidence that it's the exact opposite, rather the federal government receives billions of dollars a year from people with no SSN - the vast majority of whom are believed to be illegals trying to keep from attracting the INS with the help of the IRS.
probably? it's not probably, it's yes. But i dont think that your statement is correct...that a supply of more people to treat means the supple of doctors will increase.
being a doctor is a job and it is one that requires a lot of sacrifice and skill and thus generous compensation. Govt bureaucracy generally doesn't provide that great of an incentive. There is more wrong with the system than just supply demand. Doctors don't usually get much pity, but their relative income has declined.
I agree with those points. It is indeed much more complicated than a simple supply and demand because there is so much distortion in the market, and there'd be more distortion still if the government was providing health coverage to so many people. I think it is something Congress should be very careful with as they construct a system. In fact, you'll need the distortion. Without it, there's no economic incentive to serve people who can't pay you. But, given that we only go around once (whether we have documents or not), it's important to provide service even if you need to make someone else pay for it. However, you cannot expect the industry to fulfill the needs of a market segment they are not allowed to serve. While having more patients won't magically produce more doctors; you certainly won't get more doctors if they don't have patients. So, it's one step in a multi-step game. After that, we'll still have to figure out how we can get competent people in the field, justify their investment, and so on.
