Liver transplants for illegal aliens: Entitlements + open borders = disaster
I’ve written before about organ transplants for illegal aliens–and been attacked by the usual socialist suspects as cruel, heartless, and racist for questioning the wisdom of US public policy that indiscriminately allocates scarce health resources at taxpayer expense to illegal immigrants. The open-borders entitlement mentality has only grown deeper since the last time this issue went national with the case of Jessica Santillan. The ideologues who believe that America should be the medical welcome mat to the world have prevailed. Via the Los Angeles Times:
Ana Puente was an infant with a liver disorder when her aunt brought her illegally to the U.S. to seek medical care. She underwent two liver transplants at UCLA Medical Center as a child in 1989 and a third in 1998, each paid for by the state.
But when Puente turned 21 last June, she aged out of her state-funded health insurance and was unable to continue treatment at UCLA.
This year, her liver began failing again and she was hospitalized at County-USC Medical Center. In her Medi-Cal application, a USC doctor wrote, “Her current clinical course is irreversible, progressive and will lead to death without another liver transplant.” The application was denied.
The county gave her medication but does not have the resources to perform transplants.
Late last month Puente learned of another, little-known option for patients with certain healthcare needs. If she notified U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that she was in the country illegally, state health officials might grant her full Medi-Cal coverage. Puente did so, her benefits were restored and she is now awaiting a fourth transplant at UCLA.
Puente’s case highlights two controversial issues: Should illegal immigrants receive liver transplants in the U.S. and should taxpayers pick up the cost?
The average cost of a liver transplant and first-year follow-up is nearly $490,000, and anti-rejection medications can run more than $30,000 annually, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees transplantation nationwide.
Donor livers are also in scarce supply. In California, nearly 3,700 people are on a waiting list for livers, according to the network. Last year, 767 liver transplants were performed in the state. More than 90% of the organs were given to U.S. citizens.
Donor livers are generally allocated through a geographically based distribution system on the basis of how sick the patients are and how long they have been on the transplant waiting list.
Immigration status does not play a role in allocating organs.
Doctors and illegal alien patients rely on DHS incompetence and the deportation abyss to abet them:
If illegal immigrants inform the state in writing that U.S. immigration services “is aware of their presence and does not plan to deport them,” they could be eligible for full-scope Medi-Cal, said Norman Williams, spokesman for the state health department. Medical condition is one factor that would make immigrants eligible for coverage.
The immigrants send a form to Citizenship and Immigration Services, but the agency said it does not respond to patients or make any promises about their immigration status.
And the game continues, with illegal immigrants now voicing indignation at the inconvenience:
Jose Lopez said he came to the U.S. with his mother illegally as a child. Soon after, he contracted hepatitis A and received his first liver transplant. Eight years later, he got cirrhosis and received another transplant.
Both were performed at UCLA and paid for by the state.
As his 21st birthday approached, his mother, Maria Elena Lopez, searched for clinics that might agree to treat her son. She applied for Medi-Cal for him but has not received a response.
Her son turned 21 on Aug. 7. He said the UCLA doctors gave him extra medications to hold him over.
About a month later, his mother found the Roybal clinic, which provided Lopez with medication and monitored his care. Though his drugs never lapsed, his liver is still in rejection.
“I’m just mad,” he said from the Los Angeles apartment he shares with his parents. “You can’t just leave a person to die. That’s pretty much what they’re telling me: ‘You’re illegally here. We’re just gonna let you die.’ ”
He said he doesn’t blame UCLA for not wanting to treat him free, but added, “I was hoping for some miracle.”
Lopez just learned about the relief Puente received and said he may follow the same route. He hopes to return to UCLA for treatment.
Question: Would the Mexican government stand for illegal aliens on its soil demanding such entitlement?
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Trackbacks
- What?? Illegals Get Transplants, Health Coverage in CA:
- Random-American » Americans paying for organ transplants for illegal aliens?
- BizzyBlog » TILTPAT, BIDHAT4 (041508, Evening)
- Michelle Malkin » Open borders and the Catholic elite
- Michelle Malkin » U.S. liver transplants for Japanese gang members
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Categories: Immigration
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Thacker Agency….Please!
“a whole nother level” is NOT acceptable. How about “another entire level”?? (Kind of reminds me of irregardless, another dumb way of speaking English!)
Sorry, though I agree 1000 percent with you on the subject, your English grammar needs improvement.
Regardless….NB
I believe that the big problem with the United States today, is that the people whom we elect to represent us, seem to be more concerned with the health and welfare of illegals then they are about the people who elected them. I’m sorry folks, but our elected officials are selling us out. No two ways about it.
If you can do nothing to insure that your donated organs go to help citizens of the US, or for that matter people who have not abused their organs to the point of failure, I would imagine that fact has or will have a serious chilling effect on people willing to be organ donors.
Unless I’m missing something, the only way to make your voice heard is to refuse to donate your organs. Whoever is running this show needs to wake up before that happens.
I would like to personally say, to all who have had a problem with or death dealing with this issue, please let you know my heart aches for you. Reading the posts have been hard to read. God be with you all.
L
There is a whole lot we don’t know about this situation. For example, how did they get to the top of the list more than one time? If they are on the list again, they may not get another transplant before they’re health is too extreme to handle another transplant.
My sister-in-law needed a transplant and had to wait several years.
If I remember correctly, the federal government mandates that hospitals provide medical coverage for emergencies. If this is the case, then the hospitals have no choice but to provide care.
Now, the problem is that there are only X$ for health care. If UCLA and California decide to squander it on only a few people, then bad on them. That’s incredibly short-sighted, but maybe they believe that someone will bail them out.
In Maryland, where I live, people are constantly having fund raisers to cover medical costs. The illegals need to start paying something… even a 10% co-pay.
It’s the entitlement attitude and the anger of these people that is insulting.
Compassion is a wonderful thing. We should all practice compassion and generosity. But I do resent people being compassionate with other peoples’ money. The technical term for that is stealing, but let’s not get picky.
But four liver transplants? So perhaps three other people died? I think we could add murder to that charge. I guess I should say I have friends who are liberals, but I don’t, so I won’t.
They destroy people in the name of feel good compassion. If liberals would sell all they have and give it to the poor they could feel good about themselves and we wouldn’t have to make fun of them.
I have no problem allowing illegals to get medical, dental and social services as long as it’s paid for by the left wing nutjobs who want ME to pay for them!!!
Heh. If only we could send our politicians to Mexico to get a philosophical transplant on how to handle immigration I’d pay for a million new livers.
Of course not. They have respect for their country. . .and none for ours. Why should they? I wouldn’t respect a country that has no respect for its own laws.
It is amazing. I teach at a Catholic school in Northern Virginia. I lock up the classroom on Friday evening. I stop by the classroom on Sunday afternoon. I come in and I find some MS-13 graffiti on a bookshelf and on a desk, which we had to remove today.
On Saturday, a “Spanish CCD” has a class in the classroom, and guess who? has no respect for property, even on a church school and campus. The school is in an area with a large amount of illegals.
Sadly, it will probably take a huge disaster like 9-11 for us to do anything about illegal immigration.
90% of transplants go to U.S. citizens…
where does the other 10% figure in!?
we are actually setting aside organs for illegal aliens!
I don’t understand our politicians. Why don’t they understand how much illegal immigration cost our country each year?
start shooting to kill on the border. Blow up coyote vehicles with helicopter rockets.
Problem solved. No one needs a liver from the US.
Americans cannot enter any country on earth illegally. Gate swinging one way?
Lock it down. Turn off the spigot of cash to the corrupt Mexican economy and let the narco traffickers collapse the equally corrupt government.
Then conquer the whole bleepin mess and finish the job.
Bigger problem solved. Oh, and the useless PEMEX corp—- ended. We nationalize the oil field.
Watch the UN howl and the price of oil collapse because we aren’t buying anymore.
Even bigger problem solved- Oil Glut.
Buh bye.
Bear1909 out.
nfbailey,
I could be wrong but I’m thinking that ThackerAgency may be familiar with Ed Young and/or C3 Conference (or the like) and is not making a grammatical *whoops* as it would seem.
Not a biggie (one way or another) but certainly not worthy of an English lesson on this thread.
Just sayin’.
And my point of view on this topic…
Sorry, but if you’re not legal you don’t get the benefits.
tamndfan #88…I was very saddened by reading your post.
I know exactly what you are going through with the passing of your Mom. I am personally going through the same thing… and you are right the time has come for those who are here illegally to be sent back.
I would like to see a study made public on just how many Americans have died do to illegal immigration: Liver transplants, ER waiting rooms, DUI accidents, murders, etc.
Gather the usual suspects (our do-nothing politicians) in front of a TV camera and demand an immediate answer to why they continue to support this illegal invasion.
Their lack of action makes them complacent in these deaths, IMO.
This is just a horrible situation. On one hand, I wouldn’t ship livers across the border to Mexico when there are so many people who need them here. And it bothers me that people, who shouldn’t legally be here in the first place can cut in line.
But if I were dying and there was a person who needed my liver in the next room to live, would I care if they are illegal or not? Hardly. I am donating my liver to save someone’s life, I’m not stamping “for American’s only” on my organs. Could anyone here watch someone slowly dying in front of them and not want to help?
The only thing I don’t think is fair is that this girl has had multiple livers and they’ve all failed. Is it fair to give her another one when there are people who can’t even get their 1st liver transplant? I just don’t know.
The MExican’s government refusal to help their own people is just so frustrating.
I see so many articles on a daily basis when I’m doing my input into the IAATS about Criminal Illegal Aliens committing heinous crimes against Americans. They kill at least 25 Americans a day and molest/sexually assault at least 8 American children per day. Easch time I read one of them I think to myself “Will this be the one that causes American Citizens to unite once and for all and save our Country, our Heritage, and our Culture, for our children and future generations?”
Every day however, things remain status quo. The same people speak out and try to get the message out that Illegal Aliens and Illegal Immigration is killing our citizens and our country. The same people literally beg for our borders to be secured and our laws enforced. Yet nothing happens.
I actually thought this may be “the one” and frankly it should be. This story summarizes every injustice that is imposed upon Legal, American Citizens every day Illegal Aliens are allowed to break our laws at will and rape our system of benefits and life saving treatment that another American Citizen is denied in favor of an Illegal Alien.
This story should be screaming to every Legal, American Citizen that the lives of Illegal Aliens are more important than the lives of Legal, US Citizens. Especially those of us citizens who have needed or are still waiting our turn for the assistance and dire medical care we need, but are either denied over and over or put on a waiting list that never ends. We are suffering and some are slowy dying while Illegal Aliens go to the front of the line again!
This story did not even make the mainstream media however. Not one Cable News Show nor one Network News show gave it the time of day.
It is up to us to demand they give it the “time of day” just like they did with the Absolut Vodka Reconquista ad. Of course that story is now “old news” and they barely skimmed the surface of the Domestic Terror Reconquista Movement which was really the most important issue about that ad.
So I ask you all, is this the one? Have you had enough? If Illegal Aliens killing our Citizens doesn’t phase enough people, is it enough that Illegal Aliens Lives’ are More Important Than the Lives of American Citizens in Dire Need of Life Saving Treatments Who Are Left to Die While Illegal Aliens Go to the Front of the Line?
I hope it is.
I think illegal aliens should get only one kind of transplant.
a one-way ticket home.
This hits a nerve with me.
My husband and I were told by a social worker at Stanford that WE would need $100,000 cash upfront (even w/ health insurance) to be placed on a waiting list if our cardiac baby were to ever need a heart transplant … a month later, a local nurse told me that an illegal alien came over from Mexico when she found out her baby had a heart defect. She had her “anchor baby” at a L.V. hospital ~ the baby was later flown to California for a fully paid for heart transplant.
*shakes head*
I wonder if you consider the Islamofascists to have committed any unlawful acts? Do they consider themselves bound by them? I think not. To wit: Combatant who are captured while spying do not have the right to prisoner of war status unless they were wearing their military uniforms. (Protocol I, Art. 46). I think you could substitute terrorism for spying in the above. teh point is, they wear no identifiable uniform, thus endangering civilians, amongst which they hide.
Children under 15 must not participate in hostilities and must not be recruited into the armed forces. (Protocol I, Art. 77, Sec. 2; Protocol II, Art. 4, Sec. 3C). Child homicide bombers, anyone?
These protections include the right to be free from attacks, reprisals, acts meant to instill terror, and indiscriminate attacks. Civilian populations must not be used as civilian shields. (Protocol I, Art. 51). Does this need elucidation?
The list goes on.
Do they take advantage of us because we consider ourselves bound by them? Yes. Obviously. They expect us to act humanely, and we do, but they freely flaunt the rules of the Geneva Conventions, inasmuch as they are not signatories and clearly do not consider themselves bound by their regulations.
The “conservative” crack notwithstanding, the first Geneva Convention was signed in 1864 to protect the sick and wounded in war time. What is the point of bringing up colonial era issues?
Can you please supply the reference for the ““conservative” colonials who insisted on torturing anyway” statement? I would like to review it myself.