By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2009-09-25 13:17:24 | Word Count: 703
Working with the president, Democrats in Congress are doing everything they can to make sure no illegal immigrant gains any benefit from health insurance reform. Given the politics, you can hardly blame them. Joe Wilson isn’t the only conservative agitated over the prospect that some undocumented worker somewhere in South Carolina or Iowa or California might get cheap health insurance with a taxpayer subsidy.
Still, it seems a poor reflection on one of the richest countries in the world that we are so stingy, so callous and so xenophobic. At least we’ve not reached the point of turning away cases of immediate need — victims of car accidents or heart attacks or others who need emergency care. The law still requires emergency rooms to treat such patients without regard for their immigration status. (That wouldn’t change with health care reform.)
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But, as a conundrum in Atlanta demonstrates, we may be on the verge of refusing care to chronically ill immigrants who would die without continuing medical intervention. Grady Memorial, Atlanta’s big public hospital, is embroiled in controversy as it tries to close an outpatient dialysis clinic offering last ditch care to dozens of poor patients, many of whom are illegal immigrants.
Like many of the nation’s urban charity hospitals, Grady has struggled for years just to keep the doors open to serve its overwhelmingly poor population. A tough new CEO and a new board of directors have insisted on cuts, including a plan to close an old, ill-equiped dialysis clinic that has lost $2 million to $4 million a year for several years. The hospital planned to transfer its patients to other facilities that accept Medicaid. But it now turns out that around 60 of the clinic’s patients are illegal immigrants who are not eligible for the insurance program for the poor.
A Georgia judge has issued an injunction ordering the hospital to keep the clinic open temporarily. The hospital says it will to pay to send willing patients back to their native countries or to other states, a plan that has produced its own controversy. Grady officials also say they are willing to pay for patients to go to other clinics, although that, too, is likely to produce an outcry from those who believe illegal immigrants should not receive any benefits.
Meanwhile, the patients are left to wonder whether they will die soon. Some of them need dialysis three times a week, which suggests a very low level of kidney function. Without dialysis, which is prohibitively expensive out of pocket, some might die within a few weeks.
I was struck by the ages of some of the patients, people in their 30s and 40s. I don’t know their personal histories, but I doubt these were people who came to the U.S. seeking medical treatment. They came here to work and may have worked hard for several years before they developed an illness. Now, they need care.
I know from reading the comments on my blog how little sympathy there is for them in some quarters. Indeed, I’ve been surprised by how little sympathy there is even for Americans without access to medical care. A theme among the commenters is this: “I did well in school; I worked hard to get a good job; now I have health insurance. If others worked as hard as I, they’d have health insurance, too.” What happened to a more generous sentiment, summed up in words attributed to a long-dead evangelical preacher: There but by the grace of God, go I?
For illegal immigrants, of course, the sentiments are even harsher, and President Obama can’t afford to lose health care reform to outrage over workers who crossed the borders illegally. Still, it’s troubling this country, which fancies itself the “shining city on a hill,” can’t muster a bit more compassion.
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