illegal immigrants not getting health care.

[Havock]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061103/...umented_babies

I found this on yahoo this morning. In the article it makes not giving them automatic healthcare sound like a bad idea. As the child of fully LEGAL immigrants I dont see why these people should get any kind of free ride. It took my father 7 years to become a naturalized citizen. He has his green card and citizenship papers framed and up on the wall in my parents house. The way I see it, if he had to follow the law everyone else should have to follow the law also. There shouldnt be any short cuts to becomeing a citizen , no matter how many babies you squirt out.

[Albromor]

Hats off to your father. He did it the right and correct way. I have a feeling this will be relegated to the political forum.

I know a person here in Atlantic County, NJ who works in the health care system and she has lost count of the number of illegal immigrants who 1) swap bogus Social Security Cards,2)give bogus names, and 3) refuse to speak English. She said, "Do you realize the danger of trying to treat someone who won't/can't speak English?" And if something happens guess who gets sued and/or loses their license?

Illegal aliens are also getting social security benefits while not paying taxes. Isn't the dire warning that Social Security will become broke in the near future? That's it, add to the early demise by straining it even further...

[Dundee Slaytern]

Moving this to the Current Events Forum, since this is more of a serious-tone topic covering non-personal( in general) news.

Cheers.

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

While I realize that, for some, the issues here are complex and painful, I also realize that I couldn't sneak over to Canada and take demand socialized health care.

[Olorin]

In the LA area, several emergency rooms have been closed in the past few years; mostly because they went bankrupt trying to absorb the cost of treating undocumented immigrants. In theory, the federal government is supposed to step in and reimburse the hospitals for this, but in practice, the hospitals lose money every time they treat an illegal immigrant, and eventually, either the ER or the whole hospital goes under.

Something needs to be done about our immigration policy. I think the most effective change would be to get tough on employers who hire illegals, especially if they pay them substandard wages (they should face jail time for the hiring, and be required to pay the illegals back pay for any work done below minimum wage). It's not fair to the legal immigrants if they have to compete for jobs with illegals, who can opt to work for less than minimum wage, and who don't need to pay social security.

I say crack down on the employers. When the jobs dry up, the illegals will return to their home countries and work to immigrate legally. Then we will see if there is truly a shortage of US citizens to fill the jobs, and if so, we can increase our immigration numbers so that we have enough legal immigrants to fill them.