By Jim Spencer
SpencerSpeaks.com
You can measure Congressman Tom Tancredo’s hatred of illegal immigrants by his willingness to exploit children.
So when Tom Terrific went after a law expanding health insurance coverage for children of the working poor, he reached a pinnacle of cynicism. Tancredo opposes a bill expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, because it might extend services to the kids of undocumented immigrants.
I suspect Tancredo’s call for an ID check in the SCHIP bill has much more to do with the Congressman’s flagging nativist campaign for president than it does with the potential that “real†Americans will be denied health care while undocumented people get treated.
“The problem with the new bill is that it removes safeguards,†Tancredo spokesman T.Q. Houlton told me Tuesday. “It will encourage more illegal immigrants to come here. The program is now up for grabs.â€
Up for grabs by whom?
“It’s a problem that doesn’t exist,†said Edie Sonn, a spokeswoman for the Colorado SCHIP Coalition. “We used to talk to hourly employees at hotels and laundries. We’d tell them, ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re documented, if your child was born here, they’re an American citizen, so sign them up.’ None of those people would do it. People who come here illegally are scared to death to take advantage of programs.â€
Even ones for which their kids qualify.
Tancredo, meanwhile, is talking about kids who are here illegally.
“Removing the ID requirement will simply make the (SCHIP) program more susceptible to waste, fraud and abuse by persons who are here illegally at the expense of U.S. citizens,†the Congressman insisted in a statement.
But the Congressman has not documented any level of abuse by those children getting health care.
Recent reports which have measured the savings of increased ID requirements to Medicaid, the government-subsidized health insurance for the poor, showed no cost savings for excluding illegal immigrants, said Elizabeth Arenales of the Colorado Center for Law and Policy.
No similar study has been done for SCHIP that Arenales knew of.
But the idea that there is great abuse of the system by children who are undocumented is a mirage.
“We’ve never identified that undocumented people are a problem in
Actually, the idea that treating children of any background for medical conditions is bad turns the concept of health care and abuse upside down. For Tancredo, it’s a self-serving interpretation that plays fast and loose with the lives of innocents who have no more control of their presence in the
That doesn’t seem to matter to Tancredo as he claws for some traction in a presidential campaign that seeks to exploit fear of foreigners.
Houlton could not tell me his boss’ alternative to the expansion of SCHIP, which pays for care for children whose parents make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford regular health insurance premiums. It’s all about keeping the ID check.
By that measure, if the ID check stayed in, Tancredo should support SCHIP expansion.
Only he doesn’t.
“Democrats are looking at the reauthorization of this entitlement program as an opportunity to move us toward a taxpayer-funded, government-run, socialized health care system,†Tancredo said in his statement.
President George W. Bush has threatened to veto the SCHIP bill if it passes both houses of Congress.
Tancredo and Dubya both think the bill takes away money from the private sector that would otherwise be able to provide better and more economical health care for kids. That, of course, is an empirically proven lie.
What stinks about all of this is the willingness of politicians to make pawns of children in a failed system that does as much to make insurance executives rich as it does to make people well. It is one more example of medicine practiced to promote income instead of healing.
Tancredo’s tangent of immigrant-bashing is gravy for conservatives trying to stop the delivery of decent health care to Americans. Conservatives in the House of Representatives have already glommed on to the bad foreigners idea to gain strength to attack SCHIP. Tancredo, meanwhile, has gotten his nativist agenda back in the headlines.
Proof of the stupidity of this approach is only as far away as your nearest hospital emergency room. There, doctors must treat the sick, regardless of ability to pay and regardless of legal status. The cost of that care gets passed on in the form of higher health insurance premiums and fees for those of us lucky enough to have coverage.
Here’s what Tancredo forgets as he tries to exploit children in behalf of an ultimately doomed presidential campaign:
The laws of this country eventually mandate medical treatment. But human decency and our claim to a civilized society also require it. The problem is that America is in a self-destructive cycle where paying for health care will eventually kill us all with its runaway costs, if not untreated illnesses.
So Tancredo can rant his nativist rant. And Tancredo and other private-sector advocates can keep trying to put corporate profits before public interest.
Emergency room care will still remain the most expensive and least efficient form of health care.
That’s true for the children of undocumented immigrants. But it’s just as true for everyone else.
7 users commented in " Tancredo Exploits Kids To Help His Presidential Campaign "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback“Democrats are looking at the reauthorization of this entitlement program as an opportunity to move us toward a taxpayer-funded, government-run, socialized health care system,†Tancredo said in his statement.
I look forward to the day that Mr. Tancredo and his “conservative” brethren denounce Medicare in equally strong terms, since it is also taxpayer-funded, government-run, and “socialized” in that it seeks to promote the welfare of the elderly as a whole, as opposed to benefiting only those with sufficient income. His constituents aged 65 and older would, presumably figuratively, crucify him were he foolish enough (or “conservative” enough) to do so.
Tancredo, the unique one-trick pony, is not worth commenting on as to his reponse to this. But it interesting to note how “government programs” has a common reaction to both conservatives/liberatians and the illegals; neither “trusts” it. The right feels this is cracking open the door to socialism and the illegals don’t trust the government; and maybe rightfully so. Contrary to the Tancredo’s of the world they’re not jumping on every free gov’t program because they fear this would identify them as being undocumented. It’s better to give up the assistance then to risk being ID’s should the winds change and “deportation rather than amnesty!” becomes the war cry. It’s hard to believe anyone can be against health care for kids.
The children of the working poor are most in need of medical care. Give it to them.The unworking poor already have it.
I disagree that seniors should not get medicare and a social security check. The neediest ones are often the people who never bothered to work, or those who worked and blew it all on the endlessly bigger house, car, furniture, Vegas, cruises, expensive restaurants, luxuries, etc. Why should those of us who kept our nose to the grindstone, paid and paid into social security and thought about the future so we wouldn’t be destitute be penalized in our old age? Hogwash.You ain’t gettin’ my social security check sonny.. Well, not to worry, NO elderly people will have it someday if we give instant citizenship to 20 million people who came in illegally.Social Security and medicare will be history…
What kind of person would deny health care to a child (or to ANYONE) in need? What has happened to our sense of humanity? All religions teach of helping the “least of these”. I am so sick of listening to this free market claptrap! We already have socialized public education and libraries and also health care and social security for the elderly and lets not forget the military. My taxes pay for the current immorality and insanity going on in Iraq because our military is subsidized by ALL tax payers. I hope Tancredo and others who agree with him ask themselves some hard questions about what kind of a person turns away the sick.
It still really bothers me that your voice of reason was shut out of the Denver Post, and your counterpart colmnist is still ranting away. This country is no longer ruled as a Democracy.
Christina
86 hospitals are already out of business in the state of California due to illegal immigration.
I do not want to pay for the
health care of millions of third world children.
Carlos Slim is now the richest man in the world.
He owns the telephone monopoly in Mexico.
He needs to start using his money to help put in
roads and electricity and hospitals in Mexico.
Why are all of you so willing to take on this financial burden that will bankrupt this nation!
Maybe I am thick…but we have to provide I.D. to enter a PG-17 movie. Providing an I.D. for a government sponsored program should be an absolute requirement. What is up with Democrats that don’t want to have people provide simple identification from everything from voting to receiving welfare benefits.
Fraud runs rampant in our society…especially in certain sectors with respect to credit and banking concerns and identity theft.
That being said, sick children need to be taken care of, whatever their immigration status.
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