Health Care and Immigration

Illegal immigrants do not qualify for public services, such as food stamps, or health care, but why ? The moral question is, is right to prevent someone the means to sustain their health simply because they are from another country? If the answer to this question is yes, then consider how that may reflect on the country supporting laws that prevent immigrants from receiving health care. The humanitarian element is of great importance, even if supporting immigrants cost more. A cost basis argument, gives the impression, that budgets take precedents over human welfare.

Immigrants who seek public services are a cost consideration, but if the intention is to focus on money and not to provide aid that may help a person with a sickness, essentially this what is being conveyed, " it is costing money, so let the immigrants be sick ". This is not the sort of values the United States wishes to be known for. Understandably, the cost of caring for immigrants should not be be ignored, but if someone is sick, and a nation chooses not to help that person simply on the basis of being from another country, accusations of systemic racism may start to fly. The laws are a byproduct of the values of the law-makers. If law-makers decide, immigrants will be turned away for something as basic as health care, then the law-makers could be described as racists using the law to disguise their racist values.

Being fair in this instance to immigrants and the Americans who are likely to pay the taxes that would support such public services is not an easy task, on the one hand there are budgetary considerations that have to be taken into account, but there are human rights considerations that have to be taken into account as well. Where does one find the balance? Are we a country of finance or compassion? I do not know if the issue of health care and immigration enables us to be both, for compassion alone will not sway the hearts of hard-line contenders of illegal immigration, and this includes the " if they are not suppose to be here send them back to their country" attitude.

Before the 1996 laws promulgated by Bill Clinton placed very strict limitations on providing illegal immigrants health care, food stamps, and other public services, it could be said that we were a country of compassion, but after 1996 what happened ? The 1996 law required immigrants to wait for some time before being illegible, and families who wanted to support immigrants had to provide documentation of their income and reimburse the government for any services rendered. Humanely, the laws have been modified since then to allow certain benefits but only under certain circumstances.

Bush does not support providing health care or public services to illegal immigrants , but yet he supports the guest worker program. Bush wants them to work in the United States but he does not want them to have health care or access to food stamps. Contradictory, I am not sure, a bit peculiar yes indeed, society does not have what you need. These laws are ineffectual to a very extensive degree because immigrants who really need aid will most likely not allow something like the law to prevent them from acquiring health care and food stamps, for hunger and sickness are formidable law breakers.

If a caring mother or father is desperately seeking to feed their kids, the law is just a formality that can be negotiated, and that applies to citizens and immigrants. Hospitals and free clinics help immigrants despite what the laws demand. Compassion in this case overshadows legality. If a doctor has an immigrant patient who is in need of care, not providing aid to the immigrant patient is not an option. The politicians must have knowledge of this and perhaps the immigration issue is just another political football.