!

Initially I was going to continue our conversation from the last two weeks and discuss health care practice changes for the future. However, the fervor regarding the influx of undocumented illegal immigrants got me thinking about the numbers and the effect on other systems besides the legal issues.

According to the Texas Hospital Association, hospitals along the U.S.-Mexico border are reporting an influx of unaccompanied children. After children are detained by the border patrol, they are put under federal jurisdiction. Hospitals may request federal payment for the children’s care, you and I then pay the tolls; in the same way they’re already submitting payment requests for other undocumented patients. The whole situation may be incendiary and it seems that nobody wants to be responsible for saying something and ending up in an unflattering media spotlight. It seems that the journalists are being fed information to fit political messaging.

Go back to one of my earlier blogs when I discussed the numbers of uninsured people out there in the US. I mentioned the number of 11 million undocumented immigrants who didn’t have health care insurance. I also mentioned the fact that if the governing body had solved this issue of managing the undocumented aliens, by whatever means that we may want to consider, that the 11 million could eventually become tax paying, insurance purchasing part of the population, financially contributing to sustainability of the health care system.

I mainly discussed the California situation where the burden is felt throughout the health care provision system, in the form of non-reimbursed ER visits, hospital stays, physician visits, etc. The undocumented aliens will continue to stress the health care as well as the educational system.

I just had a patient in the office that, at the end of her Spring semester as a teacher had the principal bring 4 undocumented immigrants from Honduras who she, the teacher was supposed to integrate into her 6^th grade class. Neither did she speak Spanish nor did the children speak English. The best is that although the students of Maryland are required to have the necessary vaccinations, none of these children had any of their vaccinations before being shunted into this teacher’s class. Best f all was that she had to provide the necessary school supplies from her own pocket, which she was not reimbursed. This now becomes a health care risk for the Honduran students as well as the rest of the class. Why, because they haven’t been immunized and that we are finding the undocumented immigrants coming across the border with chicken pox, scabies and tuberculosis.

Look to the European experience if you want to see what eventually happens with the influx of an abundance of non-tax paying illegal immigrants from the Middle East

They are a huge burden to the system, requiring increased funding of an already stressed system where waiting times are measured, not in minutes, hours or days. Instead there are waiting times of months for physician visits as well as for necessary surgical procedures. The British are already increasing their Value Added Tax from 17% to 27% and the patients will be paying co-payments, which their system has not had since 1948.

Not solving the continued poring of illegal immigrants over our borders will raise the numbers of uninsured, some uninsurable, to ballooning number of 12-15 million. What do we do then in a system that is already planning to solve the VA health care problem by shunting the Vets into the private and or ACA system?

Is anybody using their brain over there in Washington, D.C.? I think not or are they continually playing the game of politics?

The politicians, including the President as well as the idiots in the Senate and the House want to make the other party take the blame in order to boost their party’s mid-term election results.

The UN Secretary General made things even worse labeling this population of illegal aliens as refugees. They should be protected and integrated into our society. But I ask you, at what cost to the rest of the US population- educational, financial as well as the health care burden?

Nancy Pelosi, shut your mouth, come up with a constructive solution or bus/transport them all to your house, or at least your district! You then can bear the financial cost and health care burden.

This is a problem that has been brewing for years, but no one seems to want to solve the problem and possibly lose their seat in Congress, or worry about offending the “wrong” people.

Get over it and make some hard and constructive decisions! Otherwise the whole system will implode