BF2S Forums Joe Wilson: in 2003 vs. now

I wonder what the entire bill says.. not just an excerpt.

ATG wrote:

Well, one major beef conservatives have is how the feds stiff the states for their failure to secure the border, which causes hospitals to get shafted and close.

It is not supporting medical treatment for illegals, it is supporting hospitals not getting screwed, which in turn hurts us all.

And how exactly is that different from Obama's bill?  We're socializing medicine for the sake of legal citizens, not illegals.  Illegals are going to get served regardless of whether we socialize or not, so Wilson's protests seem to be rather futile and quite frankly...  stupid.

Kmarion wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

While this is slightly different in nature to what Wilson is currently protesting, it contradicts his claims of being against funding the care of illegals.

Is he against providing emergency care or is he against enrolling illegals into a single payer system? Reimbursing economically troubled hospitals that are obeying the law is not the same as providing UH to everyone who crosses our border.

There's not much of a difference actually.  Both involve illegals getting care.  Both cost our system a lot of money.

If Wilson was pushing for more border security, he'd have an argument.  Until he actually does something that helps to cut off the stream of illegals entering this country, his protests seem pretty full of shit.

Kmarion wrote:

There is no difference in providing emergency treatment and universal healthcare? If this is true then Barry O' is just offering emergency care with his plan, something we all already have.

Even if Obama only passes socialized emergency care, that's still better at controlling costs than the current system.

The point is...  if Wilson's complaint is that socialized care would cost us too much because of illegals, then he's overlooking how much we already spend on illegals with the current system.  He may have supported a bill in the past that was meant to help cover the cost of illegals, but even that bill fails to really fix the cost problems, because the amount it authorizes for hospitals is only a small fraction of what illegals cost hospitals currently.

The difference with Obama's bill is that socialized care would cover the cost of illegals when it comes to emergency care the same way that our current system does, but it would handle these costs better than that 2003 bill does.

Even if we ended up providing basic care as well to illegals, the system would be in better shape than it currently is.

Besides, Wilson's protests assume that SAVE is the only thing that could keep illegals from being served.  It's not.  With the bill currently being considered, hospitals aren't going to deviate from their current procedure of verifying your identity when you show up.  The bill might not mandate it, but it's not like hospitals will go out of their way to serve people that don't pay up.  They only do it for illegals when they come to the ER.  At least, that's what most hospitals do.

So the logic behind what Wilson is saying would only really make sense if the bill forces hospitals to serve illegals.  So far, I have found nothing in this bill that would suggest that.

Turquoise wrote:

There's not much of a difference actually.  Both involve illegals getting care.  Both cost our system a lot of money.

$250k/yr x 5 years = $1.25M

Obama's plan x 5 years = $900B (his numbers) or $1T+ (CBO numbers)

Nope. No difference there at all.

FEOS wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

There's not much of a difference actually.  Both involve illegals getting care.  Both cost our system a lot of money.

$250k/yr x 5 years = $1.25M

Obama's plan x 5 years = $900B (his numbers) or $1T+ (CBO numbers)

Nope. No difference there at all.

It's $250 million per year, not $250,000 actually.  Apparently, the author of my first link made a typo.

But yeah, there is a cost difference indeed.  I'm saying that both are expensive, but the principle is basically the same.

Last edited by Turquoise (2009-09-15 22:04:46)