Be wary of any healthcare mandate: it’s a device by which major health insurance carriers compel already poor people to sink money into overpriced plans that cover very little and come with numerous strings attached. Between high deductibles and mandatory coinsurance these plans are not coverage: they’re extortion.
Obamacare was supposed to "bend the cost curve", too. I haven't seen recent hard data, but my impression is that it didn't work as advertised.
Note well: I have no opinion on whether this idea will in fact work. I'm merely pointing out that one should not take politicians' claims on such matters at face value.
If it actually is single a real single payer system, then maybe this is fine, but it’s just as likely that the mandate gets established, but the single payer part fails to materialize.
how many citizens and legal migrants do you know are going to work in backbreaking conditions picking the food you eat for minimum wage? Cheap robots haven't caught up yet to pick and grow everything we need. Also note that not everyone can pay whole food prices
If they got paid a living wage to do it with reasonable hours? A huge number. Would that mean food would get more expensive? Yes. Is that a bad thing? No.
OP said "market price for their labor", not minimum wage. If there is no one willing to do the labor for minimum wage, then minimum wage is not the market price for that labor. When you can't afford to pay necessary labor costs for a product, the answer isn't to go to the black market.
I’ve thought about this quite a bit. California min wage is $11/hour. Let’s say that the market rate for legal worker labor that’s going to work the fields is double that, that still seems like it’d be affordable.
It’s not like labor is 100% of the cost of produce. There’s seed, fertilizer, packaging, transport. I’d be surprised if labor was even 25% of the wholesale cost. Yes it’d be more expensive but I don’t think it’d be prohibitively so.
Throwaway because I don’t want this associated with me publically.
I grew up in the Imperial Valley, California and graduated from CUHS the year after the recession hit.
At the time I had no prospects, I wasn’t a software developer, I didn’t have the grades or money for college outside IVC and neither did many of my classmates.
No fewer than 7-10 people my age, my class, were working the fields nearby the winter after graduation, all US citizens most at least 2nd generation, 2-3 pochos that couldn’t even speak Spanish.
It wasn’t good money, but it was money that was available without having leave/stop helping your family and move to San Diego and pay San Diego rent, food, transport, and moving prices for some shitty job at a Cici’s Pizza while living in a 2 bed/1 bathroom apartment with 4 other people and trying to catch classes at grossmont, city, Mesa etc simultaneously.
Many people would take that opportunity, you just don’t know any of us.
So, the fact that these people live in the underworld and generally get mistreated by their employers and paid illegally low wages is a feature to you? Interesting.
it's not a feature, it's the current state, as someone above mentioned the market isn't paying minimum wage and has to rely on lots of migrant laborers to pick the food. Yes we can do better. One incremental step is to give them free or affordable healthcare
It would be compassionate of these illegal immigrants to improve their own countries instead of using resources in the next country.
Another way to resolve the cost might be to fine companies that hire illegal immigrants or to send bills / decrease funding (although I don't think CA sends any funding overseas) to countries that have illegal immigrants here.
Yes, lets fault the shoeless refugees with kids for not single-handedly fixing the complex problems in their countries, some of which are caused by US Government actions going back over 40 years. That sounds like a winning solution.
Or maybe California is dealing with their domestic problems as best they can, and the Federal government should start helping Central America rather than starting pointless trade wars.
When you think about it the best way for immigrants to improve their own countries is to move to the US or any other right country, earn a lot of USD/etc there and then move back to their home country. Every dollar they earn and spend in their homecountry will eventually return to the US because they can't do anything with dollars in the homecountry except exchange it with someone who will buy american products.
Does helping individuals with their healthcare improve society? Presumably any advocate of government healthcare programs would say that it does. If it does, then why would the legal status of each individual affect the societal improvement?
You can look at developed countries that do provide healthcare to individuals, who across the board have lower murder rates and violent crime than the US.
It's easy to answer your question, just look outside your own borders.
Because as a society we know it’s cheaper to treat early and often rather than deal with emergencies 80% of the time.
Also, I agree with you, but likely from a different place. No individual should be paying a hospital bill, it should be included in a tax on my income. If I have lots of income I pay for lots of people, maybe an astounding amount, if I have little to no income I depend on my wealthy neighbors to cover me. Seems to me like the only way to go, that or I guess the rich get eaten.
following this logic, we shouldn't get salary from our daily work. Everyone is working for the country, and the country would take care you everything, education, healthcare, housing etc. Yes, this is called communism. And China has tried that in 1950s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward), which is even better, that you don't even need to cook for yourself, as the community would provide a public cafe for free. But it proved that's not working.
The alternatives are sending them home - or - giving them citizenship.
Suppose you do the later - whoops (!) - as soon as the workers are citizens, and employers have to pay full benefits, and worry about unions ... then they'll dump such new citizens and hire actual illegal workers!
Point being: the price of that cheap labour is a function of their illegal status more than anything.
It's a false dynamic.
Just enforce basic laws. Americans will do many of those jobs for higher wages, the jobs that can't support higher wages will leave for Mexico and help them out down there, even in that scenario, surpluses come back to the US as well.
The real 'long term' answer is just to enforce basic citizenship and employment laws.
The answer on healthcare is much more complicated, but probably has more to do with regulating prices etc. than it does expanding medicare/medicaid, which is actually very inefficient compared to other nations, because prices are so high.
Single payer, as someone below mentioned, gives the gov the power to negotiate better deals, but you don't necessarily need single payer for that.
I'm generally against any kind of real socialization because it always ends up a mess, but in healthcare it seems it's going to be needed to stop the '100 aspirin' problem, among others.
More medicare just means more '$100 aspirin' unless it's combined with some other, heavier kind of action.
What about offering a reward to unregistered immigrants in exchange for ratting out their employers? Works for other types of illegal labor... maybe a slice of the fine and the option of fast-tracked citizenship.
Anyway, policing businesses will always be easier than policing individuals... smaller numbers, immobile, already registered with the state, and they have stronger incentives to obey the law.
The 'status quo' is to further develop a 'serf economy' of non-citizens, further ingraining sectarianism, division ... in addition to even racism, massive legal headaches and grey areas, and a burgeoning populism.
Asking people to follow very basic and normative laws is the central social artifact of any civilization. Without it ... it's going to be bad.
Just enforce the laws.
If laws or policies need to be changed, then change them! Say for example, if there's 'very low unemployment' in Cali, and they really need workers, then maybe 1) allow more immigration. 2) have a temporary worker system that's reliably enforced.
But otherwise, don't create two sets of laws, two economies, two classes of people.
Also, the US should be making considerably more material effort to develop adjacent economies, right across the border - and I mean more than military aid for the federales, and more than just economic aid which is inefficient. A major US investment initiative for example in Baja, in the South, focusing on travel, manufacturing, that ensured physical security, financial security etc.. and maybe a lot of money and effort would come flushing in. Aside from historical narratives of colonialism etc. it could be done, and done well, and it'd be a huge win-win.
And FYI this means considerably better healthcare for those living there as well, frankly, probably almost as good as American healthcare for pennies on the dollar. If it were up to par ... you'd even see a boon of medical tourism, for which there is a huge unmet demand simply because it's very risky for folks to go to 'some random place' in Central America they've never heard of that may have no standards. Imagine a set of hospitals and clinics with a high operating standard, and some brand equity, with cheap prices? Now that's a business! But it can only be facilitate with core civic stability which the US (and Canada?) could feasibly help provide.
When NAFTA was re-negotiated, I wish they'd have addressed these new, 21st century issues instead of rehashing tariffs on steel and milk ...
> The alternatives are sending them home - or - giving them citizenship
No, neither of those are things California can do instead of providing healthcare.
> More medicare just means more '$100 aspirin' unless it's combined with some other, heavier kind of action.
No, it doesn't. Moreover, this is more Medi-Cal (i.e., Medicaid) not more Medicare. Which also doesn't mean that, but it's a completely different program with different policies.
A lot of housing and infrastructure development done by small businesses just won't get done if the price of labor or material becomes too high.
In areas of California where development is rampant and growth is fast paced cheap labor is in high demand.
Yes, if America doesn't have a class of serfs with no healthcare, no rights, who can be treated poorly because they can't complain - a whole bunch of work can't done.
However will we survive without our slaves?
Sorry, I jest ... but that's the essential nature of the argument.
If you make those illegal workers citizens ... then they will be immediately 'too expensive'.
Either people are citizens with rights, or are not.
I think you went from a 1 to a 10 real quick. No one is talking about slavery. Here in California there are armies of lawyers making sure immigrants are treated fairly and paid a minimum wage - especially in farm work.
yeah, it's much crazy radical like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18850770
So basically the hospital charge extra money for those legal residency's human right to support those illegal ones' human right. That's great!
i probably don't agree with GP, but the credit you have is in no small part due to the cheap cost of food and services that illegal immigrants provide. if you had to pay the full cost of legal labor for those products and services, you'd have much less "credit" to show for it.
you may even say you would rather have it that way. but that's not the world we live in.
so are you saying that a $5MM procedure to save a lazy ne'er do well homeless person from some exotic condition, whereupon their release from the hospital will go back to being homeless and is likely to die of some "ordinary" disease, is a basic human right?
where is the line between what level of health care is a right and what level is not? i'll note there is no such thing as a life-saving procedure. even trauma interventions are just deferral of death.
don't get me wrong, i don't have an answer myself. i'm just trying to understand your position in better detail. we are all here due to the compassion of many, many others, most of which are unrecognized.
but a right? how can it be a right when health care as we know it today didn't even exist 100 years ago?
and healthcare isn't free. someone pays for it, and as we are divided into nations, it's the citizens of a given nation that have done the paying. i do believe illegal immigrants should get better treatment, possibly including healthcare. After all, they are (contrary to those who need someone to blame for their woes) doing us a desired service. so yeah, there's a grey area on healthcare. but, a right?
Because these people are a part of California society. Because California businesses are taking advantage of these people for cheap labor. If California tax payers have an issue with this they should take it up with the businesses who aren't pulling their weight.
100% agreed. By far the stupidest platform of the left. If illegals hear this, then more and more of them will come to California from other countries and especially other states. We pay $10k a year per illegal kid already which has deeply burdened our schools. We currently already pay for illegal kids healthcare completely because they are covered under medi-cal and we have emergency health care for those who urgently need it covered. We also fund clinics for illegals. I think that is more than fair and I do agree with this, but the new proposals go way too far.
That money could be spent on infrastructure, climate change, less of a tax burden, elimination of regressive taxes, more subsidized housing etc. The most disgusting thing about this is my cousin is disabled and I went with his family to an informational hearing and almost every disabled person there was borderline homeless. Living in their cars, sharing 1 room with 3 people etc. because the state only gives $700 a month if you were born disabled. All the low income houses are taken, so it’s make it on your own. I did more digging and found organizations in SF that help illegals get free housing and they do this if their kids are citizens. Since citizen kids are a priority, organizations help their families get a house and they stay there for 18 years. My disabled cousin whose parents have likely paid over a million in taxes gets left out in the cold while these people get this. He at least has family support, what about all the disabled and poor seniors who have no voice, no platform, no ability to fight for themselves. This is the one topic where I lose nuance and my blood boils. I greatly disagree with illegal immigration and especially providing benefits over the current medical for emergencies and for kids under 18.
There's an awful lot of anec-data and not much actual fact here. The people who deal with the problems mostly think this plan is a good idea. Perhaps you should think about why that is rather than bringing your own personal issues and biases into this discussion.
Which part is not a fact? That it costs $10k per illegal kid in California schools which are ranked 49th in the country? Down from near the top 20 years ago? That our schools are overflowing and getting worse in Los Angeles County, the epicenter of the problems, the schools are so bad that everyone is moving to charters.
That illegal kids are covered by medi-cal until they come of age? That we fund health clinics? That if you have a citizen baby, organizations aid you to get low income housing which then you use for the entire family? Please tell me a non fact into any of this.
Please learn to read and critically think. Anecdotes in conjunction with facts help make compelling arguments. You have brought neither. “The people who deal with the problems think this plan is a good idea”. This statement is downright moronic. Obviously the leftists who created this policy think it’s a good idea...those who disagree and create other policies such as harsher border security also think their plan is a good idea. Does that mean you will concede your critical thinking to those you disagree with?
You also talked about your cousin. About some made up homeless people living in cars that you gave no reference for. You then cherry picked a few cost numbers on costs for schools with no source or context for those numbers. Are those costs out of line with other schools in the state? You don't say.
Also, you completely ignored the fact that public school attendence is compulsory, and that children literally have no say in where their parents choose to take them. So you're basically advocating that immigrants come here and break the law to save a hypothetical amount of tax money you claim CA can't afford. All to basically punish the children of immigrants and refugees that have no say or control over any of this.
Also, what's the alternative? A bunch of sick kids getting no health care and getting their peers sick, some of whom are undoubtedly Americans. Your points don't make any sense and you have to make up alot of nonsense to try and make it look sensible. But clearly people who disagree with you are the ones who have a lack in "critical thinking". SMH.
> "California already covers undocumented children until they turn 19, with Newsom’s plan increasing the age cut-off to mirror that of the Affordable Care Act, which allows young adults to stay on a parent’s health insurance plan until turning 26."
75 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadObamacare was supposed to "bend the cost curve", too. I haven't seen recent hard data, but my impression is that it didn't work as advertised.
Note well: I have no opinion on whether this idea will in fact work. I'm merely pointing out that one should not take politicians' claims on such matters at face value.
It’s not like labor is 100% of the cost of produce. There’s seed, fertilizer, packaging, transport. I’d be surprised if labor was even 25% of the wholesale cost. Yes it’d be more expensive but I don’t think it’d be prohibitively so.
I grew up in the Imperial Valley, California and graduated from CUHS the year after the recession hit.
At the time I had no prospects, I wasn’t a software developer, I didn’t have the grades or money for college outside IVC and neither did many of my classmates.
No fewer than 7-10 people my age, my class, were working the fields nearby the winter after graduation, all US citizens most at least 2nd generation, 2-3 pochos that couldn’t even speak Spanish.
It wasn’t good money, but it was money that was available without having leave/stop helping your family and move to San Diego and pay San Diego rent, food, transport, and moving prices for some shitty job at a Cici’s Pizza while living in a 2 bed/1 bathroom apartment with 4 other people and trying to catch classes at grossmont, city, Mesa etc simultaneously.
Many people would take that opportunity, you just don’t know any of us.
Also because it's much cheaper.
Another way to resolve the cost might be to fine companies that hire illegal immigrants or to send bills / decrease funding (although I don't think CA sends any funding overseas) to countries that have illegal immigrants here.
Or maybe California is dealing with their domestic problems as best they can, and the Federal government should start helping Central America rather than starting pointless trade wars.
It's easy to answer your question, just look outside your own borders.
As it happens, pool drownings correlate with Nic Cage film releases - https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1082063513961533440
Unless you actually think illegal immigrants should just be left to die when they have medical issues? I sure hope not.
and you should pay your bill because the hospital will sue you for it. it's only when the debt is finally uncollectible that it gets absorbed.
Also, I agree with you, but likely from a different place. No individual should be paying a hospital bill, it should be included in a tax on my income. If I have lots of income I pay for lots of people, maybe an astounding amount, if I have little to no income I depend on my wealthy neighbors to cover me. Seems to me like the only way to go, that or I guess the rich get eaten.
Suppose you do the later - whoops (!) - as soon as the workers are citizens, and employers have to pay full benefits, and worry about unions ... then they'll dump such new citizens and hire actual illegal workers!
Point being: the price of that cheap labour is a function of their illegal status more than anything.
It's a false dynamic.
Just enforce basic laws. Americans will do many of those jobs for higher wages, the jobs that can't support higher wages will leave for Mexico and help them out down there, even in that scenario, surpluses come back to the US as well.
The real 'long term' answer is just to enforce basic citizenship and employment laws.
The answer on healthcare is much more complicated, but probably has more to do with regulating prices etc. than it does expanding medicare/medicaid, which is actually very inefficient compared to other nations, because prices are so high.
Single payer, as someone below mentioned, gives the gov the power to negotiate better deals, but you don't necessarily need single payer for that.
I'm generally against any kind of real socialization because it always ends up a mess, but in healthcare it seems it's going to be needed to stop the '100 aspirin' problem, among others.
More medicare just means more '$100 aspirin' unless it's combined with some other, heavier kind of action.
I hope it works out.
Anyway, policing businesses will always be easier than policing individuals... smaller numbers, immobile, already registered with the state, and they have stronger incentives to obey the law.
Asking people to follow very basic and normative laws is the central social artifact of any civilization. Without it ... it's going to be bad.
Just enforce the laws.
If laws or policies need to be changed, then change them! Say for example, if there's 'very low unemployment' in Cali, and they really need workers, then maybe 1) allow more immigration. 2) have a temporary worker system that's reliably enforced.
But otherwise, don't create two sets of laws, two economies, two classes of people.
Also, the US should be making considerably more material effort to develop adjacent economies, right across the border - and I mean more than military aid for the federales, and more than just economic aid which is inefficient. A major US investment initiative for example in Baja, in the South, focusing on travel, manufacturing, that ensured physical security, financial security etc.. and maybe a lot of money and effort would come flushing in. Aside from historical narratives of colonialism etc. it could be done, and done well, and it'd be a huge win-win. And FYI this means considerably better healthcare for those living there as well, frankly, probably almost as good as American healthcare for pennies on the dollar. If it were up to par ... you'd even see a boon of medical tourism, for which there is a huge unmet demand simply because it's very risky for folks to go to 'some random place' in Central America they've never heard of that may have no standards. Imagine a set of hospitals and clinics with a high operating standard, and some brand equity, with cheap prices? Now that's a business! But it can only be facilitate with core civic stability which the US (and Canada?) could feasibly help provide.
When NAFTA was re-negotiated, I wish they'd have addressed these new, 21st century issues instead of rehashing tariffs on steel and milk ...
No, neither of those are things California can do instead of providing healthcare.
> More medicare just means more '$100 aspirin' unless it's combined with some other, heavier kind of action.
No, it doesn't. Moreover, this is more Medi-Cal (i.e., Medicaid) not more Medicare. Which also doesn't mean that, but it's a completely different program with different policies.
However will we survive without our slaves?
Sorry, I jest ... but that's the essential nature of the argument.
If you make those illegal workers citizens ... then they will be immediately 'too expensive'.
Either people are citizens with rights, or are not.
Let's not create two systems.
I think we should really revisit this whole notion of "sanctuary" state/city/etc, it just doesn't make sense.
the World Health Organization in their constitution established in 1946:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/human-right...
crazy radical stuff huh?
you may even say you would rather have it that way. but that's not the world we live in.
so are you saying that a $5MM procedure to save a lazy ne'er do well homeless person from some exotic condition, whereupon their release from the hospital will go back to being homeless and is likely to die of some "ordinary" disease, is a basic human right?
where is the line between what level of health care is a right and what level is not? i'll note there is no such thing as a life-saving procedure. even trauma interventions are just deferral of death.
don't get me wrong, i don't have an answer myself. i'm just trying to understand your position in better detail. we are all here due to the compassion of many, many others, most of which are unrecognized.
but a right? how can it be a right when health care as we know it today didn't even exist 100 years ago?
and healthcare isn't free. someone pays for it, and as we are divided into nations, it's the citizens of a given nation that have done the paying. i do believe illegal immigrants should get better treatment, possibly including healthcare. After all, they are (contrary to those who need someone to blame for their woes) doing us a desired service. so yeah, there's a grey area on healthcare. but, a right?
Downvoters: please explain if I was factually wrong, or did you just not like what I said.
That money could be spent on infrastructure, climate change, less of a tax burden, elimination of regressive taxes, more subsidized housing etc. The most disgusting thing about this is my cousin is disabled and I went with his family to an informational hearing and almost every disabled person there was borderline homeless. Living in their cars, sharing 1 room with 3 people etc. because the state only gives $700 a month if you were born disabled. All the low income houses are taken, so it’s make it on your own. I did more digging and found organizations in SF that help illegals get free housing and they do this if their kids are citizens. Since citizen kids are a priority, organizations help their families get a house and they stay there for 18 years. My disabled cousin whose parents have likely paid over a million in taxes gets left out in the cold while these people get this. He at least has family support, what about all the disabled and poor seniors who have no voice, no platform, no ability to fight for themselves. This is the one topic where I lose nuance and my blood boils. I greatly disagree with illegal immigration and especially providing benefits over the current medical for emergencies and for kids under 18.
That illegal kids are covered by medi-cal until they come of age? That we fund health clinics? That if you have a citizen baby, organizations aid you to get low income housing which then you use for the entire family? Please tell me a non fact into any of this.
Please learn to read and critically think. Anecdotes in conjunction with facts help make compelling arguments. You have brought neither. “The people who deal with the problems think this plan is a good idea”. This statement is downright moronic. Obviously the leftists who created this policy think it’s a good idea...those who disagree and create other policies such as harsher border security also think their plan is a good idea. Does that mean you will concede your critical thinking to those you disagree with?
Also, you completely ignored the fact that public school attendence is compulsory, and that children literally have no say in where their parents choose to take them. So you're basically advocating that immigrants come here and break the law to save a hypothetical amount of tax money you claim CA can't afford. All to basically punish the children of immigrants and refugees that have no say or control over any of this.
Also, what's the alternative? A bunch of sick kids getting no health care and getting their peers sick, some of whom are undoubtedly Americans. Your points don't make any sense and you have to make up alot of nonsense to try and make it look sensible. But clearly people who disagree with you are the ones who have a lack in "critical thinking". SMH.
California has a habit of overspending when revenue is up. We'll be in red again under Gavin.