Vermont’s new healthcare bill causes debate over covering illegal immigrants

Hmm, so these crazy fools think the citizens of Vermont should “pay” for all the illegals, and make sure they have medical coverage? Holy cow, these people are here against the law, they have no rights to anything of ours, let alone, force the legal and law abiding, hard working Americans to pay for them. Maybe those who are protesting should pay for them by themselves, since they think lawbreakers “deserve” a free handout. No way should they be covered, as that will bring more into the state at taxpayer expense.

In Vermont, there’s a roadblock that stands in the way of the new single payer healthcare system: Should illegal immigrants be covered? Last week the state Senate passed its version of the bill, that would “bar” coverage for illegal immigrants, from being covered under a state-run insurance program the bill envisions setting up called Green Mountain Care. This has outraged the do gooders, who believe free handouts should continue.

“When we say health care is a human right, we mean for everybody who lives and works in Vermont regardless of legal status,” the Vermont Workers’ Center said in a statement.”We will not tolerate racial profiling and accept the unjust immigration and foreign policies of the federal government. We can do better than that.” Fox News

The bill is currently in a conference committee in which differences between House and Senate versions are being worked out. The House passed its version last month. Now we have the Vermont Workers’ Center and other groups lobbying against the measure. And they are saying Vermont isn’t Arizona. Let me explain something here. You can’t cover illegals, as like in Washington state, officials have found out when you all illegals into the basic health plan system, it overwhelms the system, and it’s bled dry. Therefore, illegals must be cut off. Furthermore, when recertification is done twice a year, “we”, the legal ones born here, must prove our legal status, and that happened to me. So what makes illegals above the law?

The lobbying effort in Vermont has angered senators who say they supported the amendment merely to clarify something they thought was in the bill already. They add that the special federal permissions — or waivers — Vermont needs to implement the health care law won’t be forthcoming if the state does not follow the federal lead in excluding illegal immigrants.

And what no one even comprehends is how this is going to effect the state budget. Just look around at other states, and see how the illegal coverage has bled medicaid dry.

The issue has struck a chord with a broad swath of human rights supporters and has raised what has been a key immigration issue in the state in recent years: the estimated 1,500 to 2,500 immigrant farmworkers who provide crucial labor to the state’s dairy farms but who often remain in hiding for fear of deportation. If they are here illegally, boot their butts out, and fine and arrest the business owners.

The legislation calls for setting up a health care “exchange,” or marketplace in keeping with the federal health care law passed last year. The Vermont bill also sets up a state board that would review and approve designs for a publicly financed health insurance program available to all Vermonters. Now that means “legal” citizens. Meanwhile, Vermont plan aims to controls rising health care costs and extend coverage to the nearly 500,000 uninsured Vermonters, even though half of them are eligible for state coverage. Fox News

The earliest this plan could go into effect would be 2014. That’s when the state could get a federal waiver to implement its own system.

But the Physicians for National Health Program, a group of 18,000 doctors who support a single-payer program on the national level, says the Vermont legislation falls short

“The Vermont plan promises a public program open to all residents of the state in 2017, but even then it would allow a continuing role for private insurance,” the group said in a statement earlier this month. “This would negate many of the administrative savings that could be attained by a true single-payer program, and opens the way for the continuation of mult-tiered care.” Fox News

In an early survey, nearly 1/4 of Vermont doctors said they would leave the state, a single-payer system is adopted.