Anonymous wrote:Everyone could have great, universal healthcare if we simply taxed the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.

I was talking to my cousin about this. She said: I don't want universal healthcare because I don't want my taxes going to providing abortions or sex changes for minors.

I told her she already paid for abortions and trans care right now.

"I do not!" she was SO offended. "I don't donate to Planned Parenthood or any of the rainbow groups."

"You have insurance, right?" is what I asked. She confirmed, of course, through her work.

"Well, the premiums you pay to your insurance company goes toward the care of others. It pays for their abortions. It pays for their gender-affirming care if they're trans."

She'd genuinely never thought of it that way. It never dawned on her or she never made the connection.

Democrats are doomed as a party if this is your messaging take.

Everyone could have great, universal healthcare if we simply taxed the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.

I was talking to my cousin about this. She said: I don't want universal healthcare because I don't want my taxes going to providing abortions or sex changes for minors.

I told her she already paid for abortions and trans care right now.

"I do not!" she was SO offended. "I don't donate to Planned Parenthood or any of the rainbow groups."

"You have insurance, right?" is what I asked. She confirmed, of course, through her work.

"Well, the premiums you pay to your insurance company goes toward the care of others. It pays for their abortions. It pays for their gender-affirming care if they're trans."

She'd genuinely never thought of it that way. It never dawned on her or she never made the connection.

Anonymous wrote:One or two or five states can't offer undocumented adult migrants free health care when over 45 states do not. Anyone with expensive health care needs flock to those states.

When lower middle class to upper middle class families can not get appointments to primary care providers and specialists, and have high co-pays and deductibles, and then you see people who have just arrived receiving care, it causes resentment.

My cousin's child had brain cancer as a toddler. He is not eligible for free physical therapy through California Children's Service, which is a service that was started during the polio epidemic and used to be for ALL Californians because now it is only for children on medi- cal (medicaid version in California.

He needs hearing aids and they are free if you are on medi-cal (medicaid) but they have to pay $5,000 because their insurance is not required to cover it. Why? Because Newsome VETOED a provision to make private health insurance cover hearing aids for children in CA.

So telling a family making $160,000 who have a high deductible health plan and are still paying high medical costs for their child that everyone who comes to CA from out of state or out of the country gets FREE care is going to lead to resentment.

That's how the GOP courted the MAGAs. They kept stressing what the average, middle-class Americans couldn't afford that immigrants and poor people got for free. It made them angry and made them join the ranks. I have a lifelong Democratic family members who went MAGA after being bankrupted by medical costs. They fully believe that the reason why they lost everything is because illegal Pedro made it across the border and was given some kind of golden credit card that entitles him to free everything.

California's state and local government debt is estimated to be around $1.6 trillion, including unfunded liabilities. This includes both the state's debt and the debt of various local government entities. This makes California the most indebted state in the nation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gov. Newsome is considering ripping the Medi-Cal healthcare rug out from under millions of illegal immigrants.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-gavin-newsom-universal-health-care-immigrants/

I'll be very honest - I'm find with extending medical care and education to all children under 18, regardless of legal status, but for adults without legal status, you have insurance, you pay cash, or you don't get care.

Agree 100%. We don't punish children for their parent's mistakes.

Anonymous wrote:Lefty UK PM is also now publicly posturing a crackdown on immigration. I wonder if somebody finally got through to the left that the Danish way (where the political class left accepted that voters did not want mass migration and put strict controls on immigration in order to defang the political right) is the way forward.

Have the Danish sent any legal immigrants who have committed no crimes (who are accused of no crimes) to a concentration camp in a third country?

We are not doing anything the Danish way. We are doing things Putin's way and you are complicit by normalizing these atrocity.

Anonymous wrote:Lefty UK PM is also now publicly posturing a crackdown on immigration. I wonder if somebody finally got through to the left that the Danish way (where the political class left accepted that voters did not want mass migration and put strict controls on immigration in order to defang the political right) is the way forward.

Of course it is. These nut jobs call Trump a fascist but want to die on the hill of giving illegal immigrants free health care (!!!) even if it means that someone even worse than Trump will be elected in 2028 because of it.

Everyone in this thread needs to revisit this Atlantic article.

If Liberals Won't Enforce Borders, Fascists Will
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/david-frum-how-much-immigration-is-too-much/583252/

Lefty UK PM is also now publicly posturing a crackdown on immigration. I wonder if somebody finally got through to the left that the Danish way (where the political class left accepted that voters did not want mass migration and put strict controls on immigration in order to defang the political right) is the way forward.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe he's learned that a vast number of Democrats think that immigrants are welcome and should come here LEGALLY, but also that those here illegally should not be given access to any services.

There's a whole swath of moderate Dems and I think that's who he's trying to woo. He'd get my vote if he took a more moderate stance on some issues.

I understand how the MAGA wooed so many of the lower income people to their side. It might be hard for DCUM to understand because most here are wealthy and well-off, but as a true middle class person with an average middle-class job & salary as a teacher, it can be angering to see how much others with less get for free. We can't afford braces for our kid but all of my students on Medicaid get them for free. We went through a rough patch 2 years ago with lots of unexpected expenses all at once that caused me to reach out to our local food bank. I found out that because we weren't on SNAP, WIC, or on section 8 housing, we had to provide proof of income. When we did, we qualified for 3 meals for each person in our household. Not 3 days of meals, but 3 meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) for 1 day. It was so disheartening. "If you or your husband weren't working, you'd qualify for more." That's what I was told. Even in school, the ESOL kids get so many services and so much aid that middle class kids do not get access to.

OP will not understand this at all. Most of DCUMs rich, out of touch liberals won’t. But of course you are right.

Anonymous wrote:Gov. Newsome is considering ripping the Medi-Cal healthcare rug out from under millions of illegal immigrants.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-gavin-newsom-universal-health-care-immigrants/

I'll be very honest - I'm find with extending medical care and education to all children under 18, regardless of legal status, but for adults without legal status, you have insurance, you pay cash, or you don't get care.

In January 2024, California became the very first state to open its Medicaid program, called Medi-Cal, to every undocumented immigrant within its borders. Some 700,000 adults between the ages of 26 and 49 now qualify for publicly funded health coverage.

It’s the fourth expansion of the program to undocumented immigrants, after kids 18 and under became eligible in 2015, young adults 25 and younger in 2019 and those over the age of 50 in 2022.

Newsome thought the expansion of all adults would cost around 2 billion dollars. It is costing BILLIONS more. California spends about $8.5 billion a year from the general fund to cover free health insurance for immigrants who are in the country without legal authorization, according to the Newsom administration’s estimates.

To put in comparison CA used to spend more money on higher education. The University of California receives $10.8 billion in total core funding for education (UC's also have medical centers which if you look at overall UC spending includes health care centers). Of this amount, 53 percent comes from tuition and fee revenue ($5.7 billion), 43 percent comes from state General Fund ($4.6 billion). Higher education spending accounted for 18% of the state budget in 1976–77, but by 2016–17 higher education funding had fallen to 12% of the budget. It is now 8%!

This is why so many middle class Democrats in CA are upset. So many services and opportunities that made CA a fantastic place to live are being chipped away. The average class size at my kids CA high school is staffed at an average of 36. This means they are sitting in AP classes of 40+ because they pack honors/AP classes so classes where students need more help have under 30. And then they apply to UC schools and they are much harder to get in and tuition has drastically increased from when we attended UC's in the late 80's and 90's.

So of course we all want every California child to be insured regardless of immigration status, but CA can't afford to pay for every adult regardless of immigration status to get free healthcare when other states do not. There is no waiting period for CA residency for medi-cal. Need expensive surgery, dialysis, cancer treatment, drug addiction treatment (there are rehabs that are paid for by Medi-cal that run advertisements in other states with promos come to rehab in CA, it's free they "treat" them for 30 days or 90 days until they money runs dry or they relapse then they kick them out to become homeless in CA), etc.

He's a blasted hypocrite, that's what he is.

I have more respect for die hard, principled conservatives or progressives, than I have for flip-floppers.

Anonymous wrote:I am a democrat and I voted for Harris. Tell me, why does America owe free healthcare to millions of illegal aliens??? Citizens of America don't have free healthcare, have we lost our collective minds? Sure, Newson is doing everything to position himself for 2028 but isn't this step a common sense step?

100% I'd describe myself as very liberal, but it's simply unrealistic to provide free healthcare to millions of undocumented people.

One or two or five states can't offer undocumented adult migrants free health care when over 45 states do not. Anyone with expensive health care needs flock to those states.

When lower middle class to upper middle class families can not get appointments to primary care providers and specialists, and have high co-pays and deductibles, and then you see people who have just arrived receiving care, it causes resentment.

My cousin's child had brain cancer as a toddler. He is not eligible for free physical therapy through California Children's Service, which is a service that was started during the polio epidemic and used to be for ALL Californians because now it is only for children on medi- cal (medicaid version in California.

He needs hearing aids and they are free if you are on medi-cal (medicaid) but they have to pay $5,000 because their insurance is not required to cover it. Why? Because Newsome VETOED a provision to make private health insurance cover hearing aids for children in CA.

So telling a family making $160,000 who have a high deductible health plan and are still paying high medical costs for their child that everyone who comes to CA from out of state or out of the country gets FREE care is going to lead to resentment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm democrat, but realistically speaking, with EMTALA laws requiring hospitals to treat/stabilize, but immigrants who don't have insurance, hospitals near the border cannot sustain themselves. To help hospitals stay in business near the border, that would mean a large tax burden on those who live in border states.

What if those folks have a stroke or some serious medical event requiring chronic care in a nursing home, but the hospital cannot discharge the patient because the nursing home will not accept them as an immigrant without healthcare insurance?

There is something called medical deportation where the hospital stabilizes them and then see them back to their country to avoid long term costs.

It's not fair to citizens to cover the ER cost of those here illegally.

Yes but even that can take awhile to set up and the patient stays in the hospital (without insurance) while they sort it out and make arrangements.