Posted on 11/22/2009 9:03:12 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Fifty-one people -- nearly all illegal immigrants -- are facing a "life-or-death limbo" after a cash-strapped Atlanta charity hospital decided it must stop providing them free kidney dialysis treatments that were costing the hospital (or rather taxpayers) $50,000 per year.
That's according to a heart-rending article in Saturday's New York Times about the “excruciating choices” faced by Atlanta's Grady hospital upon closing its outpatient dialysis unit. Over the years, the unit has been overrun by illegal immigrants, and it has thus become a major financial drain on the “taxpayer-supported safety-net hospital,” the Times explained in its lengthy article: "The Breaking Point: Hospital Falters as Refuge for Illegal Immigrants."
Who is to blame for this heart breaking situation?
Not surprisingly, the Times blames America's heartless polices on health care and immigration. Or as the paper explains, the moral dilemma Grady has faced is “a stark reflection of what happens when the country’s inadequate health care system confronts its defective immigration policy.”
Interestingly, though, the Times' mentions nothing about the responsibility of Mexico's government toward its own citizens, whom it all but encourages to immigrate illegally to this country. (Most of the illegal immigrants at Grady appear to have been from Mexico.)
Nor is there any suggestion that Mexico's richest taxpayers, men like Carlos Slim – the world's richest man and a major Times shareholder) -- ought to part with a tiny fraction of their fortunes (Slim's worth $59 billion) to help with the dialysis treatments of their fellow Mexicans. Couldn't some of Mexico's vast oil revenues also help pay for the dialysis treatments?
Grady, for its part, has been in quite a moral quandary over its responsibility to the illegal immigrants. Upon closing its dialysis unit, it has gone onto spend tens of thousands of dollars per patient to pay for their dialysis elsewhere -- and to even cover travel expenses to Mexico. However, hospital spokesmen all but acknowledge that at some point in the near future the funds will not be available to pay for dialysis. What's more, it seems unlikely that these patients will be getting free dialysis back in Mexico.
That Mexico's own government (and its richest citizens) are apparently unwilling to chip in to provide such care is interesting in one respect. In the past, Mexican officials have been full of outrage when one of their citizens in America has been sentenced to death -- following a murder trial in which local authorities failed to notify Mexico's consular officials that a Mexican citizen was arrested for murder.
In fact, Mexico appears to have used all its resources available -- even going to international courts -- to obtain justice for these criminals. Yet when it comes to poor Mexicans needing health care, neither Mexico's government – nor its richest citizens – are anywhere to be found. The Times makes no effort to find them for comment, either.
Could it all be a reflection of Carlo Slim's influence at the self-described “paper of record”? While an intriguing possibility, these omissions probably have more to do with the particular worldview embraced by the Times -- one that blames America for the world's problems, including a lack of free dialysis clinics for illegal immigrants.
Based on my own dialysis bills, I believe the reference should read "$51,000 per person per year".
Who is responsible for the health care of a person in India, or Ghana or anywhere else in the world? That’s how you HAVE to look at it. Can we afford to take care of all non-citizens? If not, why would we be obligated to take care of non-citizens who manage to break our laws and come here? This is a no-brainer, but then again, there are a lot of people without brains making the rules these days.
Oddly enough, Mexico complains about the fact that large numbers of the most active and enterprising of its population sneak out of the country; but at the same time, it hasn’t gotten its crime and corruption problems under control, it is plagued by unions that are essentially nothing but socialist mafias that prevent people from working, and it is bogged down by a vicious left that is opposed to any progress and has state-run industries (petroleum, for example) that somehow just line the pockets of the already filthy rich and never create anything else in the economy. So why should people stay? However, having to fork over money might make some of Mexico’s leaders get a little more aggressive about dealing with their domestic situation, so I think we should at least try to collect.
In any case, once we go down the tubes thanks to Obama, we’ll probably end up sneaking across the border to Mexico oursevles. Well, maybe not, but our economic climate here is soon going to stop attracting immigrants, legal or illegal, because it won’t be able to provide jobs for anybody, thanks to that evil thing in the White House.
that makes more sense. Its a lot of money.
lol I sure havent forgotten....
YES, SEND THEM HOME!
YES, SEND THEM HOME!
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IF it’s such a heart rending story and bothers the New York Times so much, maybe the Times should pick up the tab for these criminal invaders.
After all, the Shultsburger family is worth millions.
hey...its obama money not ours...
Yes, just as it's my responsibility to take care of mine.
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