Emerging Infectious Diseases: a useful site at the CDC

10/26/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Centers for Disease Control has an interesting section entitled ‘Emerging Infectious Diseases’ that you might find a useful resource. I came across it just now and note this recent article and study about the health of Burmese refugees arriving in Australia.

As we consider the cost of health care in America, the health of refugees should be considered.

We have a category here at RRW called ‘where to find information’ and I’ll post this link there for your future reference. I found that one need only use the sites search function for “refugees” (presumably the search could be narrowed to specific refugee groups) to find all sorts of interesting studies on refugee health issues.

Senate Dems vote down ID requirement for immigrant healthcare access

10/01/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From The Hill:

Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed a requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs.

Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that current law and the healthcare bill under consideration are too lax and leave the door open to illegal immigrants defrauding the government using false or stolen identities to obtain benefits.

Grassley’s amendment was beaten back 10-13 on a party-line vote.

The bill, authored by committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would require applicants to verify their names, places of birth and Social Security numbers. In addition, legal immigrants would have to wait five years, as under current law, after obtaining citizenship or legal residency to access federal healthcare benefits such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program or receive tax credits or purchase insurance through the exchange created by the legislation.

But the would not require them to show a photo ID, such as a drivers license. Without that requirement, the bill “remains dearly lacking when it comes to identification,” Grassley said. “Frankly, I’m very perplexed as to why anyone would oppose this amendment,” he said.

By the way, refugees do not have to wait 5 years to access welfare programs.

SEIU, Somalis, and home health care

09/29/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update October 21st: Big Government has yet another update here.

Update October 12th: Big Government has an update here.

For some time now I’ve been thinking about several strands of information that appeared interwoven, but exactly how I wasn’t sure. I still don’t have all the pieces but I’m getting closer thanks to two bits of information this week—one from Kathleen Parker, the other from a Catholic blogger in Illinois.

This is what I already knew: the Service Employees International Union was/is organizing Somalis* (probably other immigrants too), and Somalis have been implicated in at least Maine and Minnesota (this post has links to both stories) with home health care fraud. Basically, how that works is the former refugees and immigrants set up home health care businesses where they get paid by the taxpayer to ‘take care of’ family and friends whose medical issues may be dubious at best. The original concept—keeping people out of nursing homes—was probably a good one, but it has become an enormous arena for health care fraud.

Here is a New York Times article from last spring about the financial overload of the Minnesota system for home health care thanks to the Somalis.

Somali patients have been asking them to fill out forms stating that they need personal-care assistants. Some do not need the help, Dr. Pryce said, but are being egged on by Somali-run health care agencies that want to collect insurance payments for the services.

Somalis in Minneapolis, often entrepreneurial and business minded, have opened the agencies to take advantage of relatively generous rules in Minnesota that were originally meant to help keep the elderly and chronically ill out of nursing homes.
Tricia Alvarado, director of home care for the Minnesota Visiting Nurse Agency, which evaluates requests for home help, agreed that there had been an explosion of Somali agencies, with 100 or so opening in just the last three years. Many are run by people without any medical training. And Ms. Alvarado confirmed that the agencies were putting a hard sell on potential clients.

[….]

The current situation with the Somalis is part of a larger problem in Minnesota: the number of clients, and the costs of personal care, more than doubled from 2002 to 2008, and the number of agencies more than tripled. A report in January by the state legislative auditor said, “Personal care services remain unacceptably vulnerable to fraud and abuse”; the state is drawing up plans to tighten its control of the services.

Now jump to Kathleen Parker yesterday, here. (Yes, Ms. Parker is one of the faux conservatives who criticized Sarah Palin and loved Obama in 2008. I guess we should be happy she has finally figured out what’s going on.) I’ll get to the point I was most interested in shortly, but to set the stage here is some of the beginning of her colunm.

While everyone in Washington is suddenly pretending they’ve hardly ever heard of ACORN, they might want to pretend they’ve never heard of the SEIU, one of the nation’s largest unions.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the Service Employees International Union are as tight as Heidi Klum and a new pair of jeans.

[….]　

You also don’t talk about either organization without mention of Wade Rathke, co-founder of ACORN and founder of SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans. Rathke, who resigned from ACORN last year as “chief organizer” after it became known that his brother embezzled almost $1 million from the association, continues to run Local 100, as well as ACORN International, recently renamed Community Organizations International.

[….]

Now picture a triangle. One point is ACORN; another point is the SEIU; the third point is the taxpayer. Now picture arrows flowing back and forth, representing the exchange of greenbacks and services.

Parker goes on to tell us that in Kansas last week, the State declined to give SEIU the names of all the people in the state caring for people at home! Good for Kansas!

Just last week, the Kansas City Star reported that two state agencies acting on an SEIU public records request sought to identify in-home health workers who care for the elderly and disabled. After complaints, the state acknowledged that it was under no legal obligation to provide the information and ceased helping the SEIU. Unionizing is not a state function, needless to say. And never mind the invasion of privacy.

Now, skipping over to Illinois where unionizing is obviously a state function,we begin to see the pieces coming together. Parker goes on to tell us that the SEIU has had success in the land of Obama with finding out who provides home health care there.

One needn’t be a mathematician to imagine what a national health-care option might mean to a union in search of new dues-paying recruits. The SEIU, which has promised “to fight tooth and nail” for a public option, is demonstrably persuasive. In Illinois, former governor Blagojevich (thank you for your patience) helped position the SEIU so that it could unionize health-care workers when he signed an executive order allowing collective bargaining.

If you are still scratching your head and asking, o.k. so how does the SEIU get more dues-paying members out of this, the Catholic blogger I mentioned in my opening paragraph (not some big name blogger, just apparently some local lady) provides the shocking answer.

Southern Illinois Catholic says:

Pat Quinn [present Illinois governor] passed a horrible pr[o]-union law that permits the unionization of private individual caregivers. That is parents, eg, of disabled persons. Guess what? If the person votes against unionizing, but a majority of persons vote for a union, all caregivers will owe union dues–for the responsibility of caring for their own child! Illinois is apparently NOT a right to work state.

The state money that a family gets for the disabled person’s care will go in the pocket of a labor union. Insane. The goal which will appeal to families is that the union is going to lobby the state government for higher stipends for the disabled person, from which the union will, thank you very much, take its cut. Terrible for all Illinois taxpayers. This is abominable. Join a special interest group for disabled person’s families and caregivers, not a union.

It looks like it’s going to come to pass, however, at this point. Horrible. Horrible. The unions starved for membership, exploit families of disabled persons.

Be sure to read the news article linked at Southern Illinois Catholic.

So what does the SEIU do with all its taxpayer funds? It works to elect people who believe in their socialist world view—like Obama.

Update minutes later: Big Government has more on SEIU/ACORN/Illinois here.

*For new readers: The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing. Somalis are ideal candidates to work with SEIU!

Democrats pushing health care coverage for illegal aliens

09/28/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, for immediate coverage for all legal immigrants.

From The Washington Times this morning:

Fearful that they’re losing ground on immigration and health care, a group of House Democrats is pushing back and arguing that any health care bill should extend to all legal immigrants and allow illegal immigrants some access.

The Democrats, trying to stiffen their party’s spines on the contentious issue, say it’s unfair to bar illegal immigrants from paying their own way in a government-sponsored exchange. Legal immigrants, they say, regardless of how long they’ve been in the United States, should be able to get government-subsidized health care if they meet the other eligibility requirements.

[….]

Coverage for immigrants is one of the thorniest issues in the health care debate, and one many Democratic leaders would like to avoid. But immigrant rights groups and the Democrats who sent the letters say they have to take a stand now.

Most federal benefits for legal immigrants kick in at 5 years, however….

Under the 1996 welfare law overhaul, Congress restricted most federal benefits to longtime holders of green cards – those who have been in the country at least five years.

But Democrats chipped away at that rule when they reauthorized the State Children’s Health Insurance Program earlier this year and allowed states to cover all immigrant children and pregnant women, regardless of how long they’ve been in the country.

Refugees are eligible for all federal benefits almost immediately and that is one of the driving forces around the world for people to attempt to get “refugee” status as we see happening in those Thai refugee camps we told you about last night, here.

Poison pill!

Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, said proposals that include government coverage for illegal immigrants leave him incredulous.

“If anybody can, with a straight face, advocate that we should provide health insurance for people who broke into our country, broke our law and for the most part are criminals, I don’t know where they ever would draw the line,” he said.

Mr. King, who opposes Democrats’ health care plans in general, said illegal immigrant access in legislation “would be a poison pill that would cause health care to go down” to defeat.

Obama: Give illegal aliens amnesty so they can get health care

09/18/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a story that you will see everywhere today. I got it from Drudge. Ten days ago I predicted this in a post on how illegal aliens would be eligible for health care under the house bill HR3200. This is what I said on September 8th:

Of course, the Administration is also figuring on getting amnesty through this coming year and all this would be moot—illegals would be magically transformed to legals over night, and a whole new wave of immigrants would be flowing across the border.

This is what Obama said this week:

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won’t cover illegal immigrants, but argued that’s all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.

He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered – a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

“Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don’t simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. “That’s why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

Mr. Obama added, “If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all.”

So, what did I tell you above, Obama just figures the issue of whether health care reform covers illegals or not will be moot once he gets amnesty.

However, my question still remains, what is to stop new illegals and phony asylum seekers from coming across the border the very next day and creating a new wave of immigrants looking to become legal.

For a list of Obama Administration Amnesty supporters go here.