should ILLEGAL immigrants recieve healthcare?

[Guest Jochi1543]

Yeah, following that logic, since lots of Canadians commit crimes, we need to start letting convicted murderers and robbers into the country.:rollin

[Guest Kara]

>Should ILLEGAL immigrants receive healthcare?

 

If one takes this question at face-value (with no exceptions allowed) and answers in the negative then one must be prepared to also answer the following the worst-case scenario question in the positive:

 

"Should one in our society or any society die because they cannot afford to see a doctor or afford care which is available to those with more money or those who pay their taxes?"

[Guest HP]

"Should one in our society or any society die because they cannot afford to see a doctor or afford care which is available to those with more money or those who pay their taxes?"

 

There's an unsound premise there. The actual financial assets of a person are irrelevant to the question of whether they should receive care covered by provincial insurance because nobody has to pay for it up front (in Canada). Someone could feasibly be very wealthy but still not be in the country legally or pay taxes, and I would still suggest they should not be fully covered. Likewise, a poor person who is on the right side of things as far as citizenship and taxes are concerned should and would receive care.

 

I don't know if I'm interpreting your question right, but it sounds like a value judgement on a life. If that's how you intend it, I don't think it's impossible to answer both questions in the negative. You can say: "no, these people should not have to die, and their lives are as important as any. However, we simply do not have the resources to treat them, and therefore cannot offer them the same coverage."

[Guest xylem33]

yea, but there are canadians who don't pay their taxes, cheat the tax system, etc. who are still covered by health-care...should they deserve full coverage? no, ideally not. it's a tough call this issue is.

[Guest Kara]

There's an unsound premise there. The actual financial assets of a person are irrelevant to the question of whether they should receive care covered by provincial insurance because nobody has to pay for it up front (in Canada).

 

But they are relevant. If an illegal immigrant is denied access to any healthcare and does not have money to seek and pay for healthcare elsewhere what are their options?

[Guest Jochi1543]

Breaking news: go back home, where he or she is LEGAL and is entitled to whatever the government is willing to give.

[Guest Kara]

Breaking news: go back home, where he or she is LEGAL and is entitled to whatever the government is willing to give.

 

Which is usually nothing or else they wouldn’t be here in the first place working at some job at less than the going Canadian rate. So if you don't provide the services, you're essentially condemning some working people in need of healthcare to illness and death. But I suppose Canada doesn’t have the money to provide healthcare to illegal working people as priorities dictate that they should spend money elsewhere like within the borders of other nations (Afghanistan comes to mind).

 

Sure they’re violating our sacred national laws but then again respect for national borders is a bit hard to swallow given that this country and its borders were established largely on genocide of its former inhabitants.

[Guest HP]

For the third time, just because a wrong was or is committed by Canadians does not mean we should create another injustice to compensate for it. An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. Nobody is condemning anyone to death, because anyone here illegally has or had the choice to make their status in Canada legit. They could help support the health care system like we all do instead of defrauding it, and then as a Canadian citizen I would gladly help pay for their prompt and complete care.

[Guest Kara]

They could help support the health care system like we all do instead of defrauding it, and then as a Canadian citizen I would gladly help pay for their prompt and complete care.

 

Who does “we” above refer to? Assuming you’re a student, can you honestly convince anyone that you have really helped support the health care system to any significant degree? How much in the way of taxes do students pay? To a large extent, students feed off the public trough through taxpayer-subsidized education, health-care and student loans, etc. I don’t think they are in a moral position to lecture to others about paying their fair share.

 

Illegal immigrants often work hard for meager wages and contribute to our society through their work/skills. They are also far less likely to use the healthcare system for obvious reasons. I would gladly support covering their healthcare instead of spending tax-payer money in questionable foreign adventures.

 

Nobody is condemning anyone to death, because anyone here illegally has or had the choice to make their status in Canada legit.

 

As mentioned in another post, our immigration system favors the rich/educated/connected. It’s much easier to make that choice if you fall in that group.

[Guest peachy]

I would gladly support covering their healthcare instead of spending tax-payer money in questionable foreign adventures.

Whether or not you support the availability of public health care for illegal immigrents, using the existing funding of "questionable foreign adventures" as a reason to do so is a red-herring, fallacious argument. Anybody could list one or ten or a hundred federal projects that they do not wish to support. For example, given a choice between one or the other, I would presume that everybody would agree that money spent fraudulently on the sponsorship scandal would be preferably spent on healthcare for illegal immigrants. But it's not like we have a choice between Random Government Program That We Hate vs the particular government program that is under discussion.

 

That is, it makes no sense to say "we should fund healthcare for illegal immigrants because we are wasting money on the Iraq war". The two issues are separate and unrelated. If you want to discuss the merits of supporting various "foreign adventures", then do so, but it's disingenuous to conflate two separate into one, particularly when each issue is so very contentious on its own.

 

anyone here illegally has or had the choice to make their status in Canada legit.

Is that true? The Canadian immigration system is not perfect. I would guess that there are at least a reasonable proportion of immigrants who came to Canada illegally because, for whatever reason, their life outside of Canada was terrible, and they could not fit into the narrow box of accumulating enough immigration points. Or things weren't quite bad enough to qualify as a refugee. Or whatever.

[Guest HP]

Who does “we” above refer to? Assuming you’re a student, can you honestly convince anyone that you have really helped support the health care system to any significant degree? How much in the way of taxes do students pay? To a large extent, students feed off the public trough through taxpayer-subsidized education, health-care and student loans, etc. I don’t think they are in a moral position to lecture to others about paying their fair share.

 

Point conceded, to an extent. Nobody ever said that immigrants should support the system to a degree any more significant than a student earning the same income. The contribution made to the system should be proportional to income. I never said that everyone's "fair share" should be equal.

 

Illegal immigrants often work hard for meager wages and contribute to our society through their work/skills. They are also far less likely to use the healthcare system for obvious reasons. I would gladly support covering their healthcare instead of spending tax-payer money in questionable foreign adventures.

 

For the fourth time, the fact that they only receive meager compensation does not mean that they should get free rides elsewhere to make up for it. It means they should be paid fairly for the job they do. If they actually are less likely to use the system--and I'm not sure what you're basing that on--then why are they less likely? Is it because they're not covered already? In that case, the plan you're advocating would remove the reduced usage.

 

Is that true? The Canadian immigration system is not perfect. I would guess that there are at least a reasonable proportion of immigrants who came to Canada illegally because, for whatever reason, their life outside of Canada was terrible, and they could not fit into the narrow box of accumulating enough immigration points. Or things weren't quite bad enough to qualify as a refugee. Or whatever.

 

Good point, but are we then responsible for the deaths or care of anyone who merely wants to become Canadian? I don't know enough about how the immigration system works to analyze it, but where do you draw the line?

 

Kara, if you can come up with a way to make your plan work, I'd love to see it in place...and you should seriously consider becoming a federal or provincial cabinet minister. It's not that I don't want to provide care to anyone I can, it's that I don't think it's possible to expand the services to a group that isn't factored into the support of the services.

[Guest Kara]

Whether or not you support the availability of public health care for illegal immigrents, using the existing funding of "questionable foreign adventures" as a reason to do so is a red-herring, fallacious argument.

 

Such foreign adventures often drive people to leave their native lands out of economic desperation or political repression. The argument is that Canada's foreign policy largely mimics that of the United States in support of the structural adjustment policies of the IMF/World Bank, oligarchs, dictatorships and authoritarian regimes that drives people to leave their native lands out of either economic desperation or political repression. People from those countries would not be in this country, if they had a decent chance at a democratic society and an adequate standard of living.

 

If they actually are less likely to use the system--and I'm not sure what you're basing that on--then why are they less likely? Is it because they're not covered already?

 

Because they fear being caught and deported.

 

if you can come up with a way to make your plan work, I'd love to see it in place...

 

The argument is that illegal immigration is largely a process caused by the inability of people to continue to live decently in their home countries. As long as this continues, illegal immigration will continue to expand. Changing western foreign policies that lead to illegal immigration in the first place is the best way to limit further immigration to levels that are in the interests of both Canada and the have-not nations.

[Guest HP]

The argument is that illegal immigration is largely a process caused by the inability of people to continue to live decently in their home countries. As long as this continues, illegal immigration will continue to expand. Changing western foreign policies that lead to illegal immigration in the first place is the best way to limit further immigration to levels that are in the interests of both Canada and the have-not nations.

 

I thought we were talking about health care, but I agree with that statement 100%.