Comments on: The Hidden Healthcare Problem: Immigration

By: Richard Hoste

Richard Hoste — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:23:45 +0000

Immigrants are not driving up the cost of health care. Look at the medical loss ratio, exploding profits of health insurance companies and the fact that our current system is nothing close to a free market. Oh yeah?

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:38:02 +0000

We “exported” those jobs by giving them to illegal aliens who are willing to do those jobs, on American soil, for what is essentially a third-world wage. FTR I’m a registered independent.

By: gnunews

gnunews — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:29:26 +0000

See what I mean, “wetback,” that’s racist. People who talk about immigration are often racists.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:57:09 +0000

gnunews:

If we’re willing to pay living wages for jobs such as picking fruit, mowing lawns, washing dishes and cleaning hotel rooms, US citizens would do those jobs.

In Japan, faced with an aging population, they've invented robots to do most of those jobs. They actually have fruit-picking agricultural robots now. And it's been possible to mow a lawn with robots for years now. Provide a generous investment tax credit for hotels and agribusiness to invest in robots, and the same thing could be done here.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:54:36 +0000

Jim:

Giving an American job to an illegal here in the US is the moral equivalent of exporting an American job overseas. If you oppose one, you should oppose the other.

To which countries have we exported our wetback and housekeeper jobs?

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:32:12 +0000

Giving an American job to an illegal here in the US is the moral equivalent of exporting an American job overseas. If you oppose one, you should oppose the other.

By: gnunews

gnunews — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:31:46 +0000

It’s not that everyone concerned with immigration is a racist, but politically the issue panders to the racists.

In a free market we wouldn’t have insurance companies.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:27:23 +0000

Hear, Hear, Brittanicus

By: mycelf

mycelf — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:01:24 +0000

Fear or loathing of immigrants is not necessarily based in racism. It is more a sense of entitlement. In any case, with regard to health care immigration issues are a red herring.

The issues are rising costs and gross inefficiency. Shoot every damn dirty foreigner on sight and Medicare still bankrupts the government; health care costs still crush US businesses and citizens.

However, I must comment Mr. Frum on keeping the attention on the Axis of Evil foreigners and their Weapon of Mass Immigration.

By: gnunews

gnunews — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:21:59 +0000

OK. Let’s think about this for a moment. Do we really think that denying fellow human beings health care is the answer to our immigration “problem”? Stopping immigration is easy, just crack down on the employers who illegally hire illegal immigrants. That’s it.

But if we don’t enforce our immigration laws, and we allow people to come here and work, I’m sorry but denying people health care and suggesting that we allow them to bleed to death in emergency is simply disgusting.

Health care has nothing to do with immigration. People who seek to make the connection are just playing into the latent racist fears we’ve always had about immigrants.

The fact is, we need immigrants, and we always have. If we’re willing to pay living wages for jobs such as picking fruit, mowing lawns, washing dishes and cleaning hotel rooms, US citizens would do those jobs. But that’s never discussed. No one ever talks about cracking down on employers who hire these hardworking people because the only people who are worried about immigration are conservatives who are overtly pro business and latent racists.