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Wouldn't they be glad undocumented immigrants would be more less likely to live in California and less likely to live in their state?

One can hope.

Good.

Well, that's all what the article says, it just doesn't fit in the headline. It does identify that the eligibility criteria are removed by specifying all.

I mean, it's also just nice to keep people healthy as well. Medical care should not cost a thing.

One small point: Undocumented immigrants absolutely do pay taxes. They pay sales taxes, gas taxes, and contribute billions annually in income taxes. It may be true that not all of them pay income taxes, but many of them do.

And not for nothin, but there are plenty of citizens who pay little or no taxes too. And if you're worried about people not paying their fair share of taxes, it's weird to focus on such an underprivileged group when our corporations and billionaires are almost the whole fuckin pie chart. It's not even close.

"we're not even covering our own citizens"

"We" already are. If by "we" you mean Californians.

Also what's the alternative here? ER's can't deny help based on insurance. So if an immigrant goes to the hospital, should the hospital foot the bill or should that be covered by the state?

Bringing homelessness, crime, and drugs into this is a false dichotomy. Those are separate issues. But hey if people aren't going broke from getting sick maybe homelessness, crime, and drug use may go down. If you're trying to fix those issues then health care should be top of your list anyway.

And like other comments have stated, they DO pay taxes.

And all that being said, when I need to go to the dentist, I go to Mexico because it's cheaper even with health insurance here.

California is trying to set up a single payer healthcare system. This is not a case of California calling it quits and not bothering to try to cover everyone.

I think it's because it's ultimately cheaper to cover them than to let them go to the emergency room and have to pay exorbitant prices on the back end. That's a guess though.

Immigrants are part of any economy that flourishes. Always has been. Egypt, Rome, France, England all had a high population of immigration. It's to be expected with the world's six largest economy (even bigger than Russia's) there is a need for those doing these sorts of jobs to be taken care of.

As others have pointed out, they do pay taxes. They do live here. Health care should be a human right. Not a bargaining chip. The fact that universal health care isn't even considered an option for the US is ridiculous.

What makes you think Medi-Cal isn't available for California citizens?

California has a huge labor shortage. It is extraordinarily expensive to live near any major population center. Agriculture is a huge industry, but many service, hospitality industries, etc. still need and require people living near big areas where the average housing price is 500k+ (this is including 1-2 commute to achieve that price excluding our high gasoline costs)

Who the fuck can sustainably work at or near minimum wage with those costs, paying full taxes.

This is an attempt at a labor policy that keeps all tech people happy they get can go out to dinner on Tuesday night.

You can get subsidized insurance through https://coveredca.com/ or free Medi-cal.

The answer to your question is this; do the math. It turns out that it's less expensive to cover everyone than it is to rely on a system wherein illegals can only access healthcare at the ER.

It really is as simple as that.

Health insurance is the system we use to pay for healthcare. Insurance is made available by your employer, you then pay premiums in order to buy and keep your insurance, and once you actually need healthcare, your insurance helps cover some of the costs of receiving care.

Everyone in the states needs health insurance, not because of how affordable it makes taking care of emergencies, but because, if you don't have insurance, you have to pay the prices that the medical provider and insurance companies made up on how much procedures cost, so they can give each other a discount on those insane prices.

For instance, if you have insurance in the states and you go to the hospital for a nasty fall that maybe broke something. Nothing was broken, but they had to take x-rays. Well, you have to pay for the x-rays, and the time that the staff was needed for you. We're going to pretend, for this case, that your insurance won't deny coverage since it "wasn't medically necessary". So you'd get a bill between $200-$300.

But if you didn't have insurance, or were denied coverage, you have to pay full price. But that price isn't the price that anyone actually pays unless they're in your predicament. You see, the provider and insurance had gotten together to determine how much would be paid for any given procedure, but they make the deal seem much better to their respective bosses by inflating the price of the procedure before negotiations, so that the insurance pays a "discount" that's similar to the actual cost of the procedure. Which is great for them, but if you get treatment without insurance (or your insurance denies coverage) you have to pay the fake, inflated price that the provider said it cost before they negotiated the price back down to something reasonable with the insurance companies. So, to go back to my example above, those x-rays and some time with staff that didn't lead anywhere will probably cost you more in the neighborhood of $2000-$3000 if you aren't covered.

This has a double cooling effect. One, it forces more people to have health insurance out of fear of paying those stupidly insane prices. And two, it makes people avoid going to the doctor for minor issues for fear of being denied coverage since "it wasn't medically necessary". Great for profitability, terrible for humans.

Emergency rooms are required to try and stabilize patients before they discharge them. These patients are billed after they leave the hospital, insurance ir not.

If I try to schedule a checkup or procedure, I need to give my insurance card first. Uninsured can pay for a flat fee upfront. If they can't pay, they get no service.

With insurance, things get complicated. The facility will try to give you an estimated cost of the service. But it's always a back and forth with 2 or 3 parties; the insurance, facility, and doctor network. If there is a disagreement between parties, you the patient get a bigger bill. Even when you payed for the procedure beforehand.