Health Care Craziness

This Wall Street Journal article drags out into the open one of the real sleeper issues in the whole health care debate - what to do about health care for illegal immigrants. As the article points out, half of the 12 million illegal immigrants have no health insurance. So, when they get sick they go to hospital emergency rooms where, the article says, a 1986 law requires they be treated whether or not they can pay. And, get this:

A provision in the House's health-care-overhaul bill rules out federal funding for illegal immigrants.

So...emergency rooms are required by law to treat six million uninsured illegal immigrants, but the government won't reimburse them for doing so. Can you say "Catch-22?" Is it any wonder that health care costs are spiraling upward? To whom do you think the hospitals are passing along the costs of this required care? Maybe to us, ya think?