Re: Investigators obtain ObamaCare coverage, subsidies using fake identities[W:17]
I'm wondering.... do you think hospitals should refuse care to illegal immigrants who come in via the ER? Do you think they should discharge them on the street without treating their immediate life threatening issues?
Of course not. We have a law in place that requires hospitals to provide care, of whatever level, to anyone that shows up. And yes, I agree with that law.
Or do you think we should spend taxpayer money on, for example, expensive CT scans for everybody who may have a stroke or head injury, regardless of legal status?
First of all, tax payer money is not used for that, or at least it wasn't prior to the PPACA. The same law that I refer to above required such tests to be performed if they are deemed necessary by the doctor to diagnose a medical issue. The cost was shared by all of us that actually had to pay for our own health care. I had no major problem with that, because I felt as though it was similar to me donating money to a charity, but in this case it was shared across the those that had to pay.
Legal status has nothing to do with providing health care to people in need.
My point is not whether or not illegal immigrants are provided with needed health care. I've never said anything even close to that.
My issue is with who pays, and from where the funds are taken. In the previous system, the hospital would do everything they could do to get payed by the recipient of the services, and spreads the remainder of the costs among everyone else. In the new system, the government forces everyone, that actually pays taxes, to fund the costs up front with no reasonable expectation of costs being recouped by the tax payer - regarding illegal immigrants that is, if it turns out that illegals are getting tax payer funded benefits, which is possible per the OP's GAO report.
You guys keep trying to make this into some example of evil people wanting poor illegals to die without health care. That is insulting. What this is, is a question of tax payer funded benefits being potentially provided to those that are not eligible by the fact that they are neither a citizen of this country or a legal resident of this country.
It's a purely fiscal and Constitutional issue, and not an irrational issue based on emotion. We provide health care to anyone that needs it, regardless. What we don't do, and should not do, is provide it for free with the tax payer paying the entire cost or with partially paying the costs with subsidies from tax payer funds, to people that are not citizens or legal residents.
Let's keep this clean now and stick to the topic.