December 05, 2005

Alas, The Plight of the Illegal Immigrant

I live in Harris County, Texas, just outside of Houston. I work for a local school district, and pay property and sales taxes. I also pay a fair amount of cash each month for my district's healt insurance.

Imagine my anger when I came across this bit of information in a Houston Chronicle article on the difficulties faced by illegal immigrants who are in this country in violation of our laws. Look at the medical benefits they get!

For herself, Francisco, Ivonne and Gabriela, the family relies on the Harris County Hospital District's Gold Card for medical needs.

For every office visit they pay $5 and every emergency room visit $25.

It takes them awhile to get an appointment, but they are nevertheless grateful to at least have that.

It costs my wife and I $25 to see our general practitioner, and $45 to see a specialist. It costs us 30% of the ER charges if there is an emergency. And I have to wait for appointments, too. I'm willing to suspect that they pay less for prescriptions than we do, too.

Now tell me, is there somethign wrong with me for being outraged by the fact that a family of border-jumping immigration criminals has better and cheaper health care than I do -- especially since I pay for both mine and theirs?

Posted by: Greg at 01:10 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Gee maybe you need to press your union rep to negotiate a better health deal. Unless of course your stupid enough to teach and not be a member of either the AFT, or the NEA.

Posted by: effuimbecilicpinhead at Tue Dec 6 12:47:14 2005 (Sfcu+)

2 1) There is no collective bargaining for public employees in the state of Texas -- you take what the state/county/city/district gives you or find other employment.

2) As a right to work state, nobody is required to join any organization, so there are four major teachers organizations statewide -- an NEA affiliate, an AFT affialiate, and two independents.

3) I'm my building rep for the largest of the independents (the second largest statewide), The Texas Classroom Teachers Association, which is the oldest in the state.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Tue Dec 6 23:05:15 2005 (byd7W)

3 Gee, u dont think a union would realy help you dont you???im sure then Gov.Bush would have looked after all the teachers in the great state ofTEXASS ,but I forget unions are bad right Rhymes???

Posted by: Jojo at Thu Dec 8 19:35:25 2005 (9SIY/)

4 1) Unions are not, per se, a bad thing. Unions -- especially public employee unions -- as they operate in the US are generally not a good thing., given the corruptionand non-responsiveness of the organization to the desires of the workers. See the posts of Darren at Right on the Left Coast (www.rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com) for examples of the this from the Californi NEA affiliate.

2) You notice, don't you, that I am the building rep for my organization. I'm happy to be a member and a leader of the group because my participationis voluntary, not compulsory.

3) The current system was set up by the Democrats, who controlled Texas politics from reconstruction up to the 1990s (and the legislature until 2003). Let's put the blame for the system where it belongs.

4) Under George W. Bush, teacher pay was significantly increased by state mandate, and insurance benefots were improved.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Thu Dec 8 22:47:49 2005 (HmynK)

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