Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants give birth in the US every year and all the medical expenses are paid by taxpayers.
Children have no say on where they live or their legal status through no fault of their own. But I’m sure there are many people who resent these children getting free medical care. There are many cruel people in this country.
The mothers get the free care also. I was refuting your statement that illegal aliens do not get free healthcare in this country. They do.
Let me try again: California’s version of Medicaid is called MediCal, and undocumented immigrants certainly ARE eligible for MediCal to access some services. That’s even made clear on the state’s website.
Such individuals are legally eligible for “emergency and pregnancy-related services and, when needed, state-funded long-term care.”
Prenatal care is a good thing, and perfectly appropriate that eligibility is legal.
http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/services/medi-cal/eligibility/Pages/Medi-CalFAQs2014b.aspx
Our country is so pathetic that the giving of free medical care to children and pregnant women is even a topic for debate. We are an embarrassment to the rest of the western world.
How are they going to take care of the baby in childbirth without also taking care of the mother?
Romani, well, I did go through 60 pages of posts, having nothing better to do for the last hour. I found about 30 posts by multiple posters expressing resentment that their previously pristine full-pay healthy-only risk pool was being contaminated by the sick and the poor. Not a one of them offered ideas about how someone like you should get coverage in their pristine-risk-pool world.
They’re not going to take care of the baby or the laboring mother. C’mon, here. No room at the inn. Out to the stable with them.
This thread makes me sad. 
I, my family, and so many others like Romani are only able to be contributing members of society rather than totally medically disabled and totally dependent BECAUSE we have medical coverage and can get good care we can afford.
Himom, that’s why I feel that health care should simply be provided to everyone, paid for via the tax system and not private premiums. There is a strong social benefit for a system that improves the ability of all citizens, regardless f health status, to continue as contributing members of society.
@calmom I do find it very hard to believe that you can’t make a decent economic argument for having health care for all. Agree with you on the contribution members of society logic
One could make economic arguments all day long (and they have) and it wouldn’t matter. The bottom line is that millions of people simply do not believe having health care is a right.
Oops, my post #875 doesn’t make much sense anymore since the post that I was replying to seems to have poofed. It was in response to something so not totally random 
I saw it too, romani.
About those high risk pools.
Suppose you tell me that you don’t want your pristine risk pool to be contaminated by high risk people. They should be in a separate high risk pool, but don’t worry, we will fund that high risk pool with $X, which will be enough for those high risk people. They’ll be fine.
OK. I believe you.
Now explain to me why it wouldn’t be simpler just to give the insurers the $X and let high risk people into your pool.
You’d allocate the $X in proportion to the high risk people in each insurer’s risk pool. Everything, according to what you tell me, should be fine, because $X is enough.
I’m not a fan of separate but equal, because I don’t believe the “equal” part is usually true.
I think folks conveniently forget or maybe don’t realize that preventative healthcare–including diagnosing and treating conditions early can avoid later expensive ER visits that everyone pays for when the patient can’t pay. Folks who get their care thru ERs because they have no regular medical providers are an expensive drain on the system and are a result of folk not having insurance and regular care.
"About those high risk pools.
Suppose you tell me that you don’t want your pristine risk pool to be contaminated by high risk people. They should be in a separate high risk pool, but don’t worry, we will fund that high risk pool with $X, which will be enough for those high risk people. They’ll be fine.
OK. I believe you.
Now explain to me why it wouldn’t be simpler just to give the insurers the $X and let high risk people into your pool.
You’d allocate the $X in proportion to the high risk people in each insurer’s risk pool. Everything, according to what you tell me, should be fine, because $X is enough.
I’m not a fan of separate but equal, because I don’t believe the “equal” part is usually true."
Because those dollars can be easily cut if it’s funding is separate. We already know that the high risk pool funding being proposed is a tiny fraction of what it should be. That is on purpose. It makes them look like they are taking care of a problem area when in actuality they are not. They don’t want to fund sick people insurance.
Fang, you’re 100% correct about separate risk pools not being equal risk pools. This is been tried before, by those forces desperate to make sure that sick people are punished.
[Why High Risk Pools (Still) Won’t Work](http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/blog/2015/feb/why-high-risk-pools-still-will-not-work)
Emily, I’m asking the people who assure me that $X is enough, why the $X shouldn’t go to the regular insurer instead of the high-risk insurer. What’s the difference? Why the high risk pools? Why create another mechanism, when you already have an insurer offering insurance to people?
If they really are equal, as high risk pool defenders tell me, then why do they need to be separate?
CF, ahhh…gotcha.