Terra Extraneus

Due to immigrants, it seems, doctors and nurses are not hired, raises are not given, and obsolete medical equipment is not being updated. Is it possible immigrants are milking the system even more than the poor citizenry? Or, is this assertion an example of corrupt race hatred?

One of my favorite magazines, World Magazine, reported in its September 16, 2006 issue, in an article by John Dawson, that the border states and their hospitals are paying for the medical treatment of thousands of illegal aliens. Federal law requires, according to World, that the border hospitals treat through their emergency rooms anyone that seeks aid, regardless of ability to pay or citizenship.

But, this has been the law of the land for many years. In Oklahoma, for example, 800,000 state citizens, at last report, a third of the state citizenry, use Oklahoma hospital emergency rooms as their primary source of medical treatment and the taxpayers of Oklahoma pay their bills because the indigent patients cannot. Indeed, only a few years ago, the Oklahoma legislature projected that the cost of the medical treatment of these 800,000 state citizens carried with it the risk of destabilizing the state budget, or devouring it. This was true in Oklahoma without so much as a mention of immigrants, illegal or otherwise.

Federal promises to cover the costs of immigrant medical treatment, just like older promises to cover the costs of medical treatment of citizen indigents, have been unmet, according to World Magazine. Border states and hospitals claim to be in crisis mode because of these costs, just as Oklahoma hospitals have been in perpetual crisis due to the cost of caring for the poor and uninsured.

Would illegal aliens cross the border to obtain medical care if they could get it at home? United States churches apparently have not seen fit to provide medical care south of the border. Foreign aid apparently does not provide medical care south of the border.

Sadly, World Magazine did not compare the present “immigrant medical care crisis” to the pre-existing “indigent citizen medical care” crisis. World Magazine did not compare the border states to the interior states. As a result of the poor methodology, World Magazine defaulted to prejudice and concluded the immigrants were draining the medical resources of the land, even though poor citizens had the same impact on the system. World Magazine concluded the immigrants were levying a “stealth tax” on the unfortunate border states and their hospitals, but failed to mention the same “stealth tax” the citizen poor were levying in prior years. Finally, World Magazine did not inquire further as to the failure of North American Christianity to address the medical needs of the citizen poor, much less the immigrant poor.

How did World Magazine miss the mark so completely? There is only one logical explanation. Prejudice.