California becomes first state to offer health insurance to all undocumented immigrants

Wouldn't they be glad undocumented immigrants would be more likely to live in California and less likely to live in their state?

One can hope.

Good.

One less to worry about.

Probably means Texas won't be sending their refugees to California.

Well, that's all what the article says, it just doesn't fit in the headline. It does identify that the eligibility criteria are removed by specifying all.

I mean, it's also just nice to keep people healthy as well. Medical care should not cost a thing.

What a wonderful healthcare system the US has. Jeez.

That's exactly what the article said

One small point: Undocumented immigrants absolutely do pay taxes. They pay sales taxes, gas taxes, and contribute billions annually in income taxes. It may be true that not all of them pay income taxes, but many of them do.

And not for nothin, but there are plenty of citizens who pay little or no taxes too. And if you're worried about people not paying their fair share of taxes, it's weird to focus on such an underprivileged group when our corporations and billionaires are almost the whole fuckin pie chart. It's not even close.

"we're not even covering our own citizens"

"We" already are. If by "we" you mean Californians.

Also what's the alternative here? ER's can't deny help based on insurance. So if an immigrant goes to the hospital, should the hospital foot the bill or should that be covered by the state?

Bringing homelessness, crime, and drugs into this is a false dichotomy. Those are separate issues. But hey if people aren't going broke from getting sick maybe homelessness, crime, and drug use may go down. If you're trying to fix those issues then health care should be top of your list anyway.

And like other comments have stated, they DO pay taxes.

And all that being said, when I need to go to the dentist, I go to Mexico because it's cheaper even with health insurance here.

California is trying to set up a single payer healthcare system. This is not a case of California calling it quits and not bothering to try to cover everyone.

Are you a California voter? If you are, youre asking a very good question. If you’re not, well, there’s no we involved, this is a state funded program, and the state of California actually pays more in to the federal government than it receives from it, so it can prop up freeloading red states, primarily the south. So, as a non Californian, not my circus, not my monkeys.

All of that said, I agree with you, American citizens should benefit from American tax dollars before anyone else.

I think it's because it's ultimately cheaper to cover them than to let them go to the emergency room and have to pay exorbitant prices on the back end. That's a guess though.

Immigrants are part of any economy that flourishes. Always has been. Egypt, Rome, France, England all had a high population of immigration. It's to be expected with the world's six largest economy (even bigger than Russia's) there is a need for those doing these sorts of jobs to be taken care of.

As others have pointed out, they do pay taxes. They do live here. Health care should be a human right. Not a bargaining chip. The fact that universal health care isn't even considered an option for the US is ridiculous.

What makes you think Medi-Cal isn't available for California citizens?

California has a huge labor shortage. It is extraordinarily expensive to live near any major population center. Agriculture is a huge industry, but many service, hospitality industries, etc. still need and require people living near big areas where the average housing price is 500k+ (this is including 1-2 commute to achieve that price excluding our high gasoline costs)

Who the fuck can sustainably work at or near minimum wage with those costs, paying full taxes.

This is an attempt at a labor policy that keeps all tech people happy they get can go out to dinner on Tuesday night.

You can get subsidized insurance through https://coveredca.com/ or free Medi-cal.

The answer to your question is this; do the math. It turns out that it's less expensive to cover everyone than it is to rely on a system wherein illegals can only access healthcare at the ER.

It really is as simple as that.

You're so close. It's true. Why give them when we don't have it covered for ourselves.

You hint on a lot of other issues too, like homelessness and drug programs.

I'll say this, we do not have an issue with funding. For example we can look at other countries that do have proper funding for these programs and their gdp is nowhere near what the US generates. And yet we struggle!?

We have problems that we can't solve alone but we are indoctrinated into thinking that we can.

We don't need to throw this money away, but we do. Somebody will get paid a boat load of money and some poor immigrant will receive substandard healthcare. All this is working as intended and someone in 50 years will ask the same question.

We take in ~$12 billion in taxes a year from undocumented immigrants. From people who will likely never receive benefits like social security or Medicare.

Having a large group of people living in your society without healthcare is just asking for huge (expensive) trouble. And it's not like it's more than the documented Californian's have access to. In addition, Medi-Cal gives access to mental health and drug abuse counseling and help. California is really nice. There's a reason so freaking many people have moved here (although I was pleasantly surprised to see more moved out last year! Hope that trend continues). The cost of housing has gone crazy (for a long while now), which studies have shown has a direct correlation with homelessness. Don't let the propaganda get to you. California, like just about every state (and really just about every country I've ever been to), has mostly pleasant, friendly people and livable areas. And sure, some really, really shitty areas. Several obvious problems, and pretty straightforward ways to solve a lot of them, but politics and politicians just can't handle big, long-impact decisions these days.

Yeah, I'm curious how it helps them politically too. Don't get me wrong, it seems like a good thing to do, morally, but I can only see negatives politically. Could be an attempt to save money on ER, but I'm not sure if it's the state that picks up that tab. Could be an attempt to keep their working population healthier, saving money on productivity. Could've been lobbied for by the healthcare industry to reduce their costs, or industries that employ undocumented workers to make them more productive. Could be to secure the votes of citizens with undocumented parents/relatives.

I'm not a Californian, but it seems like a lot of the Democratic politicians there are grifters, and only care about themselves, getting re-elected, and climbing the political ladder; especially Newsom. So, I suppose they think this benefits them in some way, but I'm not sure how.

No, CA does not have a public option… unless you consider things like Medicaid.

That said, many are pushing for single payer, and in October Newsom signed a bill that tries to resurrect the push for single payer.

I mean, this amounts to that, since by definition, an undocumented immigrant has no documentation. So anyone in California now has access (assuming they didn't already, I don't know) to the state insurance plan by claiming to be an undocumented immigrant when they go to the doctor.

Great step for what? Mental healthcare in the state is horrible. Can't care for its own citizens but here we are.

Speaking with some authority here as I am guardian of a mentally ill family member. California vs Texas both are equally shitty when it comes to dealing with crazy. Housing is part of the major problem and no one dare fucking tackle that.

Fuck Newsome soundbite cowboy ways.

Must be very recent because I was without insurance due to cost back when I lived in california just a few months ago. Moved to china for obvious reasons

Health insurance is the system we use to pay for healthcare. Insurance is made available by your employer, you then pay premiums in order to buy and keep your insurance, and once you actually need healthcare, your insurance helps cover some of the costs of receiving care.

Everyone in the states needs health insurance, not because of how affordable it makes taking care of emergencies, but because, if you don't have insurance, you have to pay the prices that the medical provider and insurance companies made up on how much procedures cost, so they can give each other a discount on those insane prices.

For instance, if you have insurance in the states and you go to the hospital for a nasty fall that maybe broke something. Nothing was broken, but they had to take x-rays. Well, you have to pay for the x-rays, and the time that the staff was needed for you. We're going to pretend, for this case, that your insurance won't deny coverage since it "wasn't medically necessary". So you'd get a bill between $200-$300.

But if you didn't have insurance, or were denied coverage, you have to pay full price. But that price isn't the price that anyone actually pays unless they're in your predicament. You see, the provider and insurance had gotten together to determine how much would be paid for any given procedure, but they make the deal seem much better to their respective bosses by inflating the price of the procedure before negotiations, so that the insurance pays a "discount" that's similar to the actual cost of the procedure. Which is great for them, but if you get treatment without insurance (or your insurance denies coverage) you have to pay the fake, inflated price that the provider said it cost before they negotiated the price back down to something reasonable with the insurance companies. So, to go back to my example above, those x-rays and some time with staff that didn't lead anywhere will probably cost you more in the neighborhood of $2000-$3000 if you aren't covered.

This has a double cooling effect. One, it forces more people to have health insurance out of fear of paying those stupidly insane prices. And two, it makes people avoid going to the doctor for minor issues for fear of being denied coverage since "it wasn't medically necessary". Great for profitability, terrible for humans.

Emergency rooms are required to try and stabilize patients before they discharge them. These patients are billed after they leave the hospital, insured or not.

If I try to schedule a checkup or procedure, I need to give my insurance card first. Uninsured can pay for a flat fee upfront. If they can't pay, they get no service.

With insurance, things get complicated. The facility will try to give you an estimated cost of the service. But it's always a back and forth with 2 or 3 parties; the insurance, facility, and doctor network. If there is a disagreement between parties, you the patient get a bigger bill. Even when you payed for the procedure beforehand.

Health insurance implies a middleman that is profit driven to get as much money as possible by denying fringe claims, healthcare is paid for by all and has your health as its driving force.

Someone similar position to you, I needed to use Medicaid during the pandemic. I've told them twice, once over the phone, and I still seem to have an active thing.

The way I look at it though, this hopefully means more people have it than need it, versus the opposite where some can't get it but need it.

And that made me wonder. I can’t get through to them to tell them that I don’t need it, right? How the hell does someone who DOES need it get through to get some help?

The answer is always that the money is being funneled to someone who doesn't care if you need it or not

What's insane is how California can provide medical care to illegal immigrants but red states can't even provide it for their citizens.

Kind of put things into perspective where's the better place to live. That's why California is so expensive while places like Oklahoma are not.

Supply and demand, lol.

What's insane about it? Undocumented immigrants deserve healthcare too, and we should all expect public healthcare in a general sense.

Yeah "solve mental health" but no health insurance for those poors! Great idea!

Any other cliche TV quotes you want to throw out?

I feel like you are mad at the wrong organisation.

Medi-Cal is already available to all Californians that meet income requirements?

That would be Socialism

Think of undocumented as "The Gov't does not have a officially documented reason for why they are currently in the country" and not "The Gov't literally has no idea that this person exists."

You're misunderstanding jargon for a standard english word.

"Undocumented" in US immigration terms is not the same meaning as being "undocumented" in other contexts, i.e lacking any and all documents of a specific type.

You can be "undocumented" inimmigration terms and still have establishing documents like power bills that show Californian residency.

I think California also issues driver licenses regardless of immigration status, just ability to pass a driving test. That's likely the most common document that will be used for eligibility.

i don't understand who arethe documetns? it's all just papperwork, right? who makes the linews?

You ok bud?