My notion for a simultaneous attack on three problems: (1) uninsured free riders on the American healthcare system, (2) the unconstitutional individual mandate under ObamaCare, and (3) the problem of illegal immigration: limit the individual mandate to illegal immigrants, the penalty for non-compliance being immediate deportation. Check insured status automatically during all traffic stops, the same way we check auto insurance. Then abolish EMTALA for illegal immigrants.
I realize this doesn't address the problem of uninsured free riders under EMTALA who are American citizens, but at least the poorest of them are eligible for Medicaid, and they're not pouring over the borders. This proposal also assumes it's constitutional to deport illegal aliens who can't prove they have medical insurance, but since they're legally subject to deportation anyway, I don't foresee the Supreme Court objecting.
3 comments:
One problem with your approach may be that we're already in a period of reverse immigration; we might have to find ways to spur illegal immigration in order to fund the program.
Another may be that I'm not sure where the Federal government gets the authority to issue a mandate to illegal immigrants if it can't issue one to citizens. Is this an exercise of Congress' tariff power, treating illegal immigrants as de-facto imported goods?
Fund what program?
I wonder, too, whether the Feds would have the power to require illegal immigrants to buy insurance. I suspect it would pass muster, because the Feds have no obligation to permit an illegal immigrant to remain in the country at all, and can reasonably decide that illegal immigrants with no visible means of (medical) support are a higher priority for removal.
I suspect it would pass muster, because the Feds have no obligation to permit an illegal immigrant to remain in the country at all, and can reasonably decide that illegal immigrants with no visible means of (medical) support are a higher priority for removal.
Good thinking, that woman. It makes at least as much sense as the states that require a tax stamp for marijuana, saying, "You're not allowed to have this stuff at all; and if we catch you with it, we'll punish you not only for having it, but for not having paid the tax on it..."
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