re: #42 sagehen

Well it’s still over the top to mention AK 47s, because those are illegal assault weapons if I remember correctly, and there’s no way that you could get a permit to parade those around correct? The fact that there are some people showing up with handguns is concerning, but if it were AK47s and in DC proper (not across the river) then it would be illegal and they’d all be spending a solid amount of time in prison. That’s why it seemed like hyperbole, because he’s asking us to imagine something that is explicitly illegal and highly dangerous to the capital and wonder what we should think of it compared to what actually happened.

It’s like the one-sided reporting of what’s going on here in AZ. They passed a relatively harmless bill (god forbid someone should have their license on them at all times which is actually the law) and no one is hearing about the swastikas being drawn all over the capitol building (sometimes in refried beans which really has to seem ironic).

I hear complaining about how it’s not compassionate to these illegal immigrants, but the fact is that if you allow unfettered illegal immigration, then you are not being compassionate to all those people who have to wait in line, and are limited in part because of the illegal variety. In Arizona it’s a safety and budgetary issue. No one mentions how much it costs for the free healthcare given to illegals at any hospital they walk into (can’t be refused care and can’t be reported because it would be a HIPAA violation) and no one cites their overrepresentation in all the violent and non-violent crimes. If we could close it down and create a nice orderly immigration process for Mexico that just registered even hundreds of thousands to come over as long as they pass a basic background check, there wouldn’t be the tension along the border that there is now.

I work in a hospital in a good area of the Phoenix valley and the startling majority of the Charity and bad debt that we write off is due to undocumented cases. Combine that with the shitty reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid, and then the higher percentage of medicaid that we will have to take due to the Healthcare passage, and if we weren’t in a good financial situation, I would worry about my hospital going under and being bought by a for-profit. I don’t see how hospitals in central phoenix will be able to survive unless the government bails them out or just starts running the hospitals.

I know that even having this opinion, based on the facts I’ve seen in our own financial statements amounts to de jure racism for a lot of people who can sit in judgement from the east coast or midwest, but unless you work in a business that is financially adversely affected by illegal immigration, you can’t really know.