illegal immigration; facts not emotion (medical, health care, born, illegal immigrants)

[greatbasinguide]

Let me be clear about this, I am not expressing right or wrong, good or bad. Their should not be illegal immigration, but to think that Hispanic illegal immigrants are welfare recipients, lazy, bad people is just nonsense and is very likely racism.

I see on this board emotion not facts, opinions not facts, base your opinions on the actual data.


Daily Oregonian

he long-held belief, propagated by the likes of Lou Dobbs and other anti-immigration crusaders, is that illegal immigrants are draining federal and state coffers. However, Welfare Reform of 1996 disqualified illegal immigrants from receiving benefits like food stamps or welfare benefits. Further, two-thirds of all immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and income taxes, according to the Reason Foundation. In fact, illegal immigrants are paying more into our system and receiving fewer benefits than ever before - not that the majority of immigrants want benefits. Illegal immigrants are upwardly mobile at a level that outpaces native-born Americans. The only services illegal immigrants receive is emergency medical care and a K-12 education.

Las Vegas Review Journal

According to data gathered in the report, Hispanic immigrants paid $1.6 billion in state and local taxes in Nevada in 2005. Hispanic immigrants make up 18 percent of the Clark County work force, the report states.

The report notes that, by way of comparison, the state's annual budget for the coming year is $3.4 billion. However, not all local taxes go to state coffers.

"The idea is to look at what immigrants contribute to the economy -- how much of the work force, how much of the economic output," said Robert Ginsburg, a Chicago-based researcher for the Center on Work and Community Development, who compiled the report.

"You hear a lot of anecdotes -- they do this, they do that, they're a drain on society," Ginsburg said. "But what's been missing is the numbers. This shows that for Nevada, which is a relatively small state in terms of population, there's a huge positive impact."

Foundation for economic education

In constant fear of detection and deportation, few illegal aliens, if any, are seeking the social benefits that induce so many natives to prefer unemployment.
Moderator cut: do not repost copyrighted articles

WSJ excerpt;

ith migrants getting most of the gain from immigration in their wages, and owners of capital and land getting most of the rest in higher profits and rents, the surplus triangle is 1/10 of 1% of GDP. Pro-immigration people stress that immigration is positive, a net economic benefit, and in a $13 trillion economy, 1% is $13 billion. Anti-immigrant people stress that immigration adds $13 billion, or about two weeks' growth in an economy growing 2.5% a year.

Economists agree that the immigration generates a small net economic benefit for the U.S. and in doing so redistributes income from workers to owners of capital and land.

Full article; Immigration's Costs -- And Benefits - WSJ.com (broken link)

[andreabeth]

Here's some facts:

Originally Posted by ProLogic
Can you please stop with these non-sense, cheap political point threads? You've posted several these past couple of days. What exactly are you trying to tell us? Illegal Immigration? The dangers of TB? Homeland security. Spare us. If your going to talk about tax paying you should ask us Californians who contribute most of the taxes that the U.S uses.

I disagree.
I think you are underestimating the danger that MDR-TB (multidrug resistant TB) brought to the US poses.


Most Americans no longer consider tuberculosis a threat. Although this treatable and curable disease is at its lowest levels ever in the United States, it is one of the biggest killers worldwide, claiming nearly two million lives annually. About eight million people develop active cases of TB each year, and each can infect 10 to 15 others by coughing, sneezing, or simply breathing. With the increase in travel and immigration, national borders provide little defense against the transmission of TB.

A major concern of the public health community is the emergence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis throughout the world, caused by strains of bacteria that standard drug treatments cannot cure. These bacteria develop resistance when individuals with tuberculosis are inappropriately treated, or they do not complete treatment regimens. When people with TB develop drug-resistant TB, the others they infect will have the same drug-resistant strain. The emergence of resistant forms of the disease, primarily among the poor and underserved, is compounded by the fact that many countries have poor TB control programs and some have none.

However, treating drug-resistant TB requires a combination of what are called “second-line” drugs - those used when the “first-line” or standard treatment fails. These drugs are very expensive - $33,000 per patient in industrialized countries compared to $84 for first-line drugs. In addition, the second-line drugs need to be administered for longer periods of time, from 18 to 36 months. Because they are toxic with unpleasant side effects, people on a regimen of second-line drugs need to be monitored to ensure they take all the medication as prescribed and for the full period of time.
CDC Foundation - Controlling Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis

In order to enter the US legally, an individual must undergo a health screening which includes testing for TB. When a person enters the country illegally, obviously this does not happen and they may be haboring this or other diseases which are a threat to the general population. Needless to say, the mortality rate is also higher than for 'regular' TB. (I don't have a firm number right now)


Only 27 percent of primary MDR-TB cases were in U.S. born persons. The percentage of U.S. born persons with MDR-TB has remained stable at approximately 0.6 percent since 2000. The proportion of MDR-TB cases continued to disproportionately affect foreign-born persons in the United States. Among this group, MDR-TB cases has increased from 26 percent in 1993 to 81.5 percent of cases in 2005.
(World Health Organization. Global TB Control Report, 2003. Available at: WHO | WHO publications on tuberculosis. Accessed on
3/26/07.)

"If your going to talk about tax paying you should ask us Californians who contribute most of the taxes that the U.S uses." As more and more cases like this occur, you may find sizeable sums of you and your fellow Californian's (and everybody else's) tax dollars going to pay for allowing this type of foolishness. The cost of treating MDR-TB are astronomical- the lowest treatment figure I found was $21,000. Costs can run up to $250,000. The border should be sealed on a public health basis alone in my opinion.

This is not nonsense or a cheap political point.

[ndfmnlf]

The illegal alien stands accused of refusing to conform and “Americanize.” But he may be at a loss about the standard to which he is to conform and about the meaning of “Americanization.” As there is no standard, and cannot be one in this nation of refugees from all corners of the world, he, the illegal alien from Latin America, must be acquitted of this charge. It must suffice that he conforms to the only standard of a civilized society, that he is a human being who was born with inalienable human rights.

In an old thread, I asked members of this forum to define American culture. I don't think anyone put up a coherent definition of it. The reason is obvious: American culture is hard to pin down because it draws from a wellspring of sources. The English language can't be used to define it as English is itself evolving. The English we speak today is totally different from the English spoken at the time of Christopher Columbus. Heck, even some members of the anti-immigration crowd on this forum cannot spell simple English words correctly. Why should Hispanic immigrants be ostracized for failing to conform to "American culture" when those making the demands are themselves incapable of satisfying their own standards?

[sponger42]

Thank you for pointing out these facts. Now prepare to either:

1. Be buried under a flood of uninformed negative opinions.
2. Ignored for speaking truths that no one wants to hear.

[andreabeth]

Here's some more facts:

Undocumented workers in most states can not just go to any doctor without paying, they can only go to the emergency room, follow up care is not available free unless its an emergency, provided by a church, or its for a child born here.

Now this is the most amazing thing. Are you aware that a number of people who go to the ER are subsequently admitted to the hospital? All patients who enter an ER to receive treatment do not necessarily exit the ER and return home once treatment is rendered. Once through the ER door, if it is determined that the patient needs to be admitted to the hospital, they are admitted. Regardless of immigration status. So if an illegal alien goes to an ER and needs to be hospitalized for 10 days, who do you think pays for this? Where I live there was a situation where a woman living in Mexico was expecting quintuplets. She was receiving prenatal care in Mexico, this was not a situation where she was going without medical care. She decided to 'visit' relatives in the US, paid $15 to go to a prenatal clinic here, was admitted to the hospital and amassed $500,000 in medical bills, none of which was paid and was subsequently written off by the hospital (translated into English: the US taxpayer footed the bill). Her rationale for coming here was something like 'everything was so nice and new........' Furthermore, these children were born with problems associated with prematurity and are going to require a significant amount of medical care and other services for the rest of their lives. The upshot of this is that illegal aliens are very well aware, thanks in part ot their advocacy groups, that they can go to any ER with any complaint and receive care. Typically, a false name and SS# are given so when the bill goes unpaid, there is no way to track them down. In the long term, hospitals can only withstand this financial hemorrhage for so long until either the ER or the entire hospital ends up closing. When one ER or hospital closes, this then puts pressure on surrounding ERs and hospitals as they are forced to take on more and more patients. Ultimately, they too close and this puts even more pressure on the ERs and hospitals left. It is a domino effect. So when you suffer a heart attack and end up going for a 45 minute ambulance ride because all the nearby ERs have closed or are on byapss because they are full, you can comfort yourself with thoughts of how wondeful it is that we provide free care to these folks who are in our country illegally.

[andreabeth]

And a few more:

major points:

1. Carlos Slim is #3 on the Forbes list of billionaires. (now I think he is #1)

2. Every dollar of US taxpayer's money that is spent providing sevices for illegals frees up a dollar of their money that can be sent to Mexico. Remittances were estimated at $20 billion in 2005 and this year may exceed the amount Mexico earns from oil exports for the first time.
Quote:
So when el Presidente Vicente Fox complains that the "dignity" of Mexicans living illegally in America requires that they receive free healthcare on the U.S. taxpayer's dime, he is really talking about increased remittances to keep their whole corrupt system afloat.
3. Mexico has the second-highest highest GDP in Latin America, second only to Brazil.

4.Forbes magazine reports 10 out of 26 Latin American billionaires were Mexican.

5. Mexico raises only 12% of it's revenus through taxation. (the US takes in 25-28% of GDP profit in taxes.)

6. An economist stated that it is up to Mexico to solve it's problems and that bascially the rich do not want to tax themselves.

7. Mexico's economy is the 10th largest in the world.

8. Freedom House notes $2.3 billion, approximately 1 percent-of the country's economic production, goes to officials in bribes. The poorest families paying nearly 14 percent of their income in bribes.

9. The International Institute for Management Development placed Mexico at 56 out of 60 economies ranked. There is an almost total lack of investment in everything from infrastructure to education. Mexico collects so little in taxes that it cannot even buy schoolbooks or pay its police decent salaries. Investing in it's future is out of the question.

Here is the link:
http://www.limitstogrowth.org/WEB-te...icoisrich.html (broken link)
(If this gets zapped the article is worth reading, it's not real long)

[southernbliss]

In ms. illegals are not allowed foodstamps are walfare-but they get it.
How, I do not know,but they do(I have seen it)maybe they lie.
I work in law so I have seen illegals with foodstamps card.
Now the only jobs they can get around here are cash only due to them being illegal, and yes they tell you they are illegal!

[southernbliss]

posted by" andreabeth
Now this is the most amazing thing. Are you aware that a number of people who go to the ER are subsequently admitted to the hospital? All patients who enter an ER to receive treatment do not necessarily exit the ER and return home once treatment is rendered. Once through the ER door, if it is determined that the patient needs to be admitted to the hospital, they are admitted. Regardless of immigration status. So if an illegal alien goes to an ER and needs to be hospitalized for 10 days, who do you think pays for this? Where I live there was a situation where a woman living in Mexico was expecting quintuplets. She was receiving prenatal care in Mexico, this was not a situation where she was going without medical care. She decided to 'visit' relatives in the US, paid $15 to go to a prenatal clinic here, was admitted to the hospital and amassed $500,000 in medical bills, none of which was paid and was subsequently written off by the hospital (translated into English: the US taxpayer footed the bill). Her rationale for coming here was something like 'everything was so nice and new........' Furthermore, these children were born with problems associated with prematurity and are going to require a significant amount of medical care and other services for the rest of their lives. The upshot of this is that illegal aliens are very well aware, thanks in part ot their advocacy groups, that they can go to any ER with any complaint and receive care. Typically, a false name and SS# are given so when the bill goes unpaid, there is no way to track them down. In the long term, hospitals can only withstand this financial hemorrhage for so long until either the ER or the entire hospital ends up closing. When one ER or hospital closes, this then puts pressure on surrounding ERs and hospitals as they are forced to take on more and more patients. Ultimately, they too close and this puts even more pressure on the ERs and hospitals left. It is a domino effect. So when you suffer a heart attack and end up going for a 45 minute ambulance ride because all the nearby ERs have closed or are on byapss because they are full, you can comfort yourself with thoughts of how wondeful it is that we provide free care to these folks who are in our country illegally.


This so true around here our hospitals are cutting back big time due to illegals in the area get freehealth care(free to them not us)

[ndfmnlf]

The upshot of this is that illegal aliens are very well aware, thanks in part ot their advocacy groups, that they can go to any ER with any complaint and receive care.

From what I see from direct experience (I'm a doc), the great majority of patients who come to our ER and don't pay their bills are poor whites (uninsured or on Medicaid). They come to the ER for things like colds and minor illnesses that are not real emergencies. Many are intoxicated or high on drugs. So from someone who actually works in the trenches, I would have to say that you are portraying a distorted picture of the situation.

[andreabeth]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

From what I see from direct experience (I'm a doc), the great majority of patients who come to our ER and don't pay their bills are poor whites (uninsured or on Medicaid). They come to the ER for things like colds and minor illnesses that are not real emergencies. Many are intoxicated or high on drugs. So from someone who actually works in the trenches, I would have to say that you are portraying a distorted picture of the situation.

And your experience in your ER probably doesn't accurately reflect the reality of the situation for ER's in areas with high numbers of illegal immigrants. At least you still have an ER.