Immigration Policy Hospital Style

ImmigrationSo I’m torn.  I think that America should open her doors to anyone that wants to come here – terrorists and wanted criminals excepted.  However, that doesn’t mean that I’m signing up for paying for medical bills:

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Days after they were badly hurt in a car accident, Jacinto Cruz and Jose Rodriguez-Saldana lay unconscious in an Iowa hospital while the American health care system weighed what to do with the two immigrants from Mexico.

The men had health insurance from jobs at one of the nation’s largest pork producers. But neither had legal permission to live in the U.S., nor was it clear whether their insurance would pay for the long-term rehabilitation they needed.

So Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines took matters into its own hands: After consulting with the patients’ families, it quietly loaded the two comatose men onto a private jet that flew them back to Mexico, effectively deporting them without consulting any court or federal agency.

When the men awoke, they were more than 1,800 miles away in a hospital in Veracruz, on the Mexican Gulf Coast.

I have no grand illusion that clouds my judgement when it comes to medical care.  You cannot compel me to contribute to your care without my consent.  However, that doesn’t mean we can just fly these people back to where they came from.

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