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DEL.ICIO.USPeachCare: Take control of its growth
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For conservatives attempting to contain the growth of government, three major obstacles loom.
One is that social programs, once created, become sacred cows, as PeachCare has, surrounded and protected by beneficiaries, by interest groups, by the media and by politicians who use the public purse as the currency of their power and longevity. All provide a protective phalanx around the good and the bad, the workable and the wasteful, resisting anything that is not a benefit expansion.
The second is that the more-government advocates, mindful of Ronald Reagan’s use of “welfare queen” imagery to push reform, learned quickly that the key to new and expanded social programs is to shift the focus of public attention from unsympathetic characters — irresponsible adults and “welfare queens” — to “children.” When the dispute is penny-pinchers vs. “children,” government grows.
The third major obstacle is that Republicans, who now exercise control under the Gold Dome, come in all stripes. Getting them all together on any rock-the-boat legislation is no small feat. Visionary, committed leadership is essential.
The PeachCare debate in this year’s General Assembly is illustrative. The obstacles to reform, however slight, are so deeply embedded in defense of the status quo that it’s not the work of the weak, the queasy or the timid.
PeachCare, as proposed by then-Gov. Zell Miller in 1998, was a distinctly different concept. Miller would have expanded Medicaid coverage for children under 6, and offered low-cost coverage to children 6-18 whose parents earned $32,100 or less, and coverage for slightly higher premiums to children 6-18 whose parents made more than $32,100. Private insurance companies would sell policies on contract with the State Merit System.
The House, which had by then fallen under the dominating influence of its more liberal wing, stripped away Miller’s name for the proposal (Children’s Health Insurance Program), dubbed it PeachCare for Kids and turned it into a wholly taxpayer-funded expansion of Medicaid with free coverage for eligible children.
“PeachCare is a huge, new entitlement program,” said Miller at the time. “And I thought we had learned our lesson long ago that when it comes to entitlements they are impossible to control and the costs skyrocket over time.”
Oddly enough, PeachCare is not an entitlement. It simply behaves as one. Any attempt to manage its growth — something most taxpayers would want and expect — is treated as a visitation of the plague. House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) was accused here of using “boogeyman scare tactics and gross mischaracterizations” to bully his colleagues into “gutting” PeachCare. Gutting was essentially to align its future eligibility with plans in surrounding states.
By its nature, the media are most often a proponent of more government. As problems are defined, the solution is invariably a more active and expansive government. It is the simple, easy solution. Asking parents to be responsible for their own children, for example, or to marry so that children are given a fair shot at a loving, healthy and protected childhood, infringes on the free-spiritedness adults claim as a divine right. So if children are neglected, it’s because too few government agents were on the payroll or because those who were lack competence.
Conservatives in public office have to become smarter, and more media savvy, in explaining and defending actions that are bound to be unpopular.
A symbiotic relationship often exists between the interest groups that promote bigger government and the media. Interest groups conduct “studies” and commission polls, spin stories, find and offer access to individuals or families they wish to represent as typical of beneficiaries.
Effecting change is tough. It requires a governor leading. And it requires capable, committed legislators who are comfortable explaining and defending the need for a different approach, whether that is tax revision, PeachCare reform, vouchers, spending caps or health care reform. Otherwise, they’ll always be on the defensive trying to explain why they’re out to punish children.
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Comments
By GA Wonk
May 29, 2007 7:34 AM | Link to this
Jim: It’s well to remember that S-CHIP addresses a real problem, particularly post welfare-reform: the inability of many low-income working families to get or pay for health care coverage.
One way to use PeachCare dollars more strategically would be to help low-income working parents afford the employer-based insurance they may already have available to them or to pay for coverage under commercial plans.
By jbmlaw
May 29, 2007 8:05 AM | Link to this
Good morning all, hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. I oppose corporate welfare in whatever form – even if children are incidental beneficiaries of the taxpayer raid, such statist subsidies of the medical cartel salaries are indefensible.
By Dave
May 29, 2007 8:17 AM | Link to this
Normally I am against this kind of program, but I have seen its use affect at least 5 different women in my life from my niece’s mother to my current girlfriend. It was the difference that made it possible to pay the rent and buy groceries for women who work very hard but were unsupported by men who did not help. The state does not do enough to make deadbeat fathers pay, this includes my brother.
The healthcare system is badly distorted, mostly due to insurance company influence (they adapt to laws and so do we) but the end result is a system which does not provide care. I hate the idea of government run healthcare. The current system of insurance does not help either. I myself am unable to get even catastrophic care insurance due to high BP and being a contractor who gets no employee benefits. I pay out of pocket at clinics and the Dr. office. But if something major were to happen I would die. Sad we live in that kind of a system. At least I have life insurance so my family can pay my bills if I die.
By Curious Observer
May 29, 2007 8:34 AM | Link to this
This is the second column in which Wooten has pointed out that PeachCare is not an entitlement. If his purpose in making this pointless distinction is to urge legislative action to curb the program, fine. The distinction itself is meaningless. A program is an entitlement so long as the entitled people are eligible for it. Perhaps he means to point out that the federal government has not mandated that states participate in S-CHIP.
Sooner or later, states and the national government are going to have to deal with the real problem—the outrageous cost of medical care. PeachCare and Medicaid merely reflect that cost. I recently had an opportunity to review a claim filed by my personal physician with my insurance company. The billed cost for a 10-minute visit, in which the physician’s assistant took my blood pressure and pulse and the physician listened to my heart, asked how my health had been since the last visit six months ago, and wrote prescriptions for five medications, was $240.
I submit to you that no one’s services are worth $1,440 per hour. Perhaps some day we will get away from dealing with such symptoms as PeachCare and start addressing the real disease, the sky-rocketing cost of medical care. Either society needs to impose controls on this cost or we make a conscious decision to let personal worth determine whether a person lives or dies in a free enterprise system. Until then, such issues as welfare and state sponsorship of medical insurance are merely distractors.
By KR
May 29, 2007 9:02 AM | Link to this
Curious - you only saw half of the picture. Next, you need to find out how much of a discount your insurance company demands. That is thrown out right off the bat.
Then, the physician is responsible for collecting a co-pay amount from you.
Finally, if you have not yet met your deductible, the physician is responsible for collecting that as well.
One last thing: For Medicare patients, the provider nets about $0.50 per dollar charged, if lucky. For Medicaid patients, that drops to around $0.25 per dollar charged. Private insurance pays a little better, but nowhere near 100%.
By catlady
May 29, 2007 9:03 AM | Link to this
I think Peachcare, in its original form, was a good idea. However, it now has spread into a middle class decision-rescue mode, and that is unacceptable. It (and other programs, too), is now designed to reward behavior that puts the burden of people’s decisions on the backs of the taxpayers.
First, adjust the income limits downward. It is rediculously high now. No one making $48,000 should qualify.
Second, charge a PER CHILD fee, beginning at BIRTH. It is silly to give six years of free care, and inappropriate for parents to pay only for a max of 2 children, when the program covers 5 or 6 or more.
Third, make well child checkups and immunizations free, but sick child care have a co-pay. All hospital emergency room visits would incur a co-pay, with a substantial co-pay for non-emnergency use of the emergency room. Don’t reward poor planning.
Fourth, children would be inelligible for a year if the parents had insurance through work and decided to drop it or not use it.
Fifth, dental, hearing, and vision care would be free for yearly checkups upon payment of an addtional monthly fee. Any need for additional services would incur a realistic co-pay.
Sixth, “therapy” would incur an additional, realistic co-pay.
Seventh, institute real accountability for income-verification.
Until folks face the real world and real-world needs, they will continue not to meet real-world expectations of responsible behavior, and you and I will continue to pay out the wazzoo.
By KR
May 29, 2007 9:04 AM | Link to this
Curious - you only saw half of the picture. Next, you need to find out how much of a discount your insurance company demands. That is thrown out right off the bat.
Then, the physician is responsible for collecting a co-pay amount from you.
Finally, if you have not yet met your deductible, the physician is responsible for collecting that as well.
One last thing: For Medicare patients, the provider nets about $0.50 per dollar charged, if lucky. For Medicaid patients, that drops to around $0.25 per dollar charged. Private insurance pays a little better, but nowhere near 100%.
By Dave
May 29, 2007 9:10 AM | Link to this
The only way the healthcare system will ever change is if ALL employers stop providing this benefit and people are forced to buy their own insurance.
Its like the hidden taxes in people’s paychecks. Out of sight, out of mind. It seems that people can easily criticize a system when they are able to operate well outside that system. Don’t worry, in about 5-10 years employers will most likely stop providing this as a benefit, unless of course you work for the government.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 9:24 AM | Link to this
Dave I am with you.I was never a big advocate for peach care until I saw it helping a ex-coworker who lost her job and the fathers baby paid no child support. In the long run it is cheaper than using the ER as a primary care giver. Maybe we should take some of the funds that we give to illegal aliens ( through all types of social services) and use it to fund peach care.
By HIllary 2008
May 29, 2007 9:36 AM | Link to this
*Wooten you are so wrong it is scary. How easy do you think it is to rasie a family making less than $40,000 a year? Do you know how quick a family can go from middle income to poverty? The fact is that tax money is supposed to be spent domestically. Can you think of a better place to spend it than on children of the working poor. Billions of dollars on a war that can’t be won in Iraq is not where I want my tax money spent. *
By spaceman109
May 29, 2007 9:43 AM | Link to this
catlady…i like your idea of free checkups and immunizations for healthy kids. but i already can hear the medical providers screaming and shrieking about lost income.
the idea of everyone buying their own private insurace would work if the deductibles were not so outrageous. for instance, i am a 50-yo male in excellent physical shape who does not smoke. the cheapest private insurance i can find charges 200 dollars a month (not much less than my employer charges) and a TEN-THOUSAND dollar deductible (employer deductible is 2,000 dollars). one can only concude from this that those who market private insurance set up their systems to generate million-dollar bonuses for theor top people while “providing” skimpy coverage and gigantic deductibles for those who are dumb enough to buy their plans.
if there is ever national health care, the private health care insurance marketeers and jbmlaw’s medical cartel can blame no one but themselves.
By DebbieDoRight
May 29, 2007 9:52 AM | Link to this
From Curious Observer: Sooner or later, states and the national government are going to have to deal with the real problem—the outrageous cost of medical care.
Curious, they’ve, (bureaucrats,HMO’s, republcans), seen the handwriting on the wall, but like the biblical King Belshazzar, they just refuse to believe it.
JIM WOOTEN: You keep failing to bring up the fact that there was nothing wrong with Peachcare until your good friend SonnyDoo messed with it!! Remember that? No? Perhaps you may need to be checked out for symptons of dementia.
By spaceman109
May 29, 2007 9:54 AM | Link to this
rch wrote: Maybe we should take some of the funds that we give to illegal aliens ( through all types of social services) and use it to fund peach care.
i am not aware of what state you live in, rch, but i do remember that in 2006 there was a bill under consideration in the georgia legislature to address your concern. the concept was like this:
let’s say that an illegal immigrant went to the local minimart. the illegal buys a 300 dollar money order which he wants to send to mexican relatives. under the bill in question, the minimart would withhold 6 percent of that 300 dollars. the 18 dollars thus generated would go to the state. i am not sure if the bill provided for that money to go into the general fund or whether that money would go to bill-specified targets such as peachcare.
if my memory is correct, that bill failed to make it out of committee. perhaps jbmlaw or someone else remembers more details about that bill than do i. if so, i would like to see those details.
By Dave
May 29, 2007 9:56 AM | Link to this
I realize that health care providers should get a reward for the effort and dedication they place into their careers. It is essential for a free market to reward the hardest workers.
But with healthcare, its not a free market. To make matters much worse, the insurance companies are manipulating the system to extract shareholder value.
Not a problem in a standard business, but when people suffer or die for financial reasons, there is a major problem.
The only people who should make money in the healthcare system are the ones who are providing the care, not the parasites currently in charge of the system.
I would support making all insurance and healthcare management companies follow the rules of a non-profit organization and with this limiting the overhead to no more than 5% of all expenses with NO exceptions.
There are many behind the scenes people making unethical decisions for the purposes of profit, they should be doing something else with their expertise instead of denying care for sick people. Perhaps a local streetcorner is in need of a prostitute.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 10:03 AM | Link to this
Spaceman That bill did fail. I am positive that there is enough fraud and waste in the Ga. govt. to cover the cost. As most of you know, I am far from a bleeding heart. To me this is more of ” pay me now or pay me a lot more later.”
By Jim
May 29, 2007 10:12 AM | Link to this
I guess the bottom line is: We care abouit kids having health care when it is convenient. If healthcare wasn’t so costly in the first place this would not be an issue.
I was laid off 3 months ago due to a lack of work at my company. I am 59, and due to my age I have had one single job interview. That interview consisted of myself and a room full of 25 and under college graduates. I was the one not called back. I was told by a HR manager that I will not be called due to my age even though it is illegal to do so. After all, who would know. I am a former Army Officer, former state legislator, and a regional and national sales manager and I have some 25-30 something bimbo HR person telling me I have no marketable skills! She’s never had a real job in her whole life.
We have a 12 year old still at home and his health and health care is important to us. Now PeachCare sent us cards and after 2 months has dumped us because they want us to go to Medicaid and let the federal government pay for it. Maybe if they had any competent people working at PeachCare they would not have sent us cards in the first place. No, it’s easier to keep incompetent 30 year olds employed than to run a department efficiently.
By spaceman109
May 29, 2007 10:14 AM | Link to this
rch…do you remember why that bill failed?
my memory is fuzzy on that point.
By Harold
May 29, 2007 10:14 AM | Link to this
For conservatives attempting to contain the growth of government, three major obstacles loom.
Bush, Cheney and Perdue.
By jm
May 29, 2007 10:15 AM | Link to this
Just another example of caring more for a child in the womb than one that is born. While life begins at conception, it does not end at birth.
By jbmlaw
May 29, 2007 10:16 AM | Link to this
Bizarre coincidence, Tom Sowell’s essay today is on approximately the same topic as Jim’s ancillary issue, conservative’s inability to “frame the question,” titled “A War of Words” @ http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/archive.shtml The WSJ also has a thoughtful essay on the problem, @ http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010137 On a significant level, I dislike these arguments, as well as Jim’s ancillary thesis. These conservative arguments all assume J Q Public is too stupid to understand what is best for him. I cannot see how that differs meaningfully from the traditional leftist whine, that socialism always fails only because of incompetent administration (e.g., the argument by our friend Debbie @ 9:52.) Socialism always fails because it is a flawed economic theory; conservatives do not articulate well the flaws in the leftist theories because conservatives are too lazy to take the time to explain. (Maybe there is an underlying Ayn Rand-ian assumption, that each ignorant JQ Public should find the answer for himself? The irony…)
Dear Dave @ 9:10, I think you are exactly right on the only potential cure for the underlying problem, which problem was properly articulated by our friend Curious @ 8:34. We continually demand our politicians “act” to cure a problem, then feign surprise that the problem is worsened (or at least I hope we feign surprise – I would hate to think we make this mistake of market interference repeatedly, expecting a different/better result.)
By PiedmontPark
May 29, 2007 10:23 AM | Link to this
Curious,
The amount charged by the physician has to cover the following expenses :
Also, the amount billed to the ins company is typically reduced or discounted by some specified amount.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 10:28 AM | Link to this
Spaceman After great pressure from the Latino community and banking industry (Check cashing etc.) the bill died in committee.
By deegee
May 29, 2007 10:28 AM | Link to this
Meth mouth alone is costing you 4.3 million to treat in GA prisons. And you are worried about PeachCare costs? This topic is getting way too much attention from the Woo-ten Klan. Why can’t we talk about the cost of jailing and rehabilitating meth heads and the cost of maintaining their offspring? What do their crimes cost me and the citizens of the State of GA? What’s the plan for solving that problem besides locking up cold medicine?
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/05/29/0529metmeth.html
By DebbieDoRight
May 29, 2007 10:32 AM | Link to this
For conservatives attempting to contain the growth of government, three major obstacles loom. Bush, Cheney and Perdue.
ROTFLMAO!!! Too Funny!! (Accurate, but FUNNY!!!!!)
By getalife
May 29, 2007 10:33 AM | Link to this
Yes Jim,
Explain why you are out to punish children.
Geez.
Sigh, every other post.
By DebbieDoRight
May 29, 2007 10:44 AM | Link to this
deegee: Your post reminded me of a Vegas Show where the magician used “illusion” and mirrors to hide what was going on to the audience. I think that’s a lot like the Ga. Government and Wooten, a goverment moll, they illusion and mirrors, (think Wiz of Oz “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”), in order to keep people’s minds off of the things they need to be talking about.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 10:54 AM | Link to this
Debbie and Deegee Its remarkable that when we want to spend money on a program on our Ga. children that it is not as important as spending trillions on illegals. Deegee , lets solve the meth mouth problem the same way. Lets just make it legal. So long people sit in their own homes and drug themselves into oblivion, I don’t care if their heads rot off.
By Mid-South Philosopher
May 29, 2007 11:00 AM | Link to this
Good day, Jim,
My views on the American medical care system in the United States (of which Peach Care is but a small part) are well-known. Due to the social-medical-insurance complex, we are marching in lock-step toward socialized medicine and national health care…an unfortunate circumstance, but one that, likely, cannot be avoided.
Strangely enough, this challenge, like so many other can be viewed from the perspective anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan’s recent resignation letter. While Sheehan is not one of my favorite people and while much of what she has said in the past has made little sense to me, she has nailed it in her “farewell address.” Any nation that is more interested in the latest jerk to be “American Idol” and what latest sale items are available at Wal-Mart, in the face of the challenges of worldwide Islamist Terrorism and globalization of the world economy, cannot long endure in any meaningful capacity.
I doubt that the Romans knew they were heading into a “dark age”, even when Attila came knocking at the gates.
By Redneck Convert
May 29, 2007 11:04 AM | Link to this
Well, I almost beat up a librul today but he was too fast for me. He had a bumper sticker that said “Nobody Died When Clinton Lied” and was throwing off on My President Bush that way and I was ready to bash his head in but my beer truck only goes 80 mph and he was in one of those little sports cars that are way faster than that.
Anyway, we need to get rid of Peach Care and welfare programs like that. All it does is take money out of my pocket and give it to Those People that will go vote for libruls and commie programs.
They can do what we do. If little Sonny Zell George gets sick my dotter takes him to a hospitle emergency room and they have to doctor him and she is without insurance and don’t pay nothing. Why should we pay tax money for the kids of Those People to get doctoring when they can get it for free?
Anyway, Sonny had the right idea to start with. Cut the money for Peach Care. But he sort of wimped out then and went to that Pelousy woman with his hat in his hand to beg for more money oncet the Peach Care money begun to run out.
Why should a good conservative like me have to pay for doctoring the kids of Those People that are just going to grow up to be libruls and make us all live under a commie guvmint? If Sonny ain’t careful he will run out of fishing money and we will never catch anything after church on Sunday. He better look after the most important things and stop acting like a bleeding heart. If I wanted a librul I woulda voted for the Big Guy.
By jbmlaw
May 29, 2007 12:07 PM | Link to this
Dear Philosopher @ 11:00, well-written, your last note struck a mildly embarrassing chord for me. We don’t talk about it in my political circle, but when Rome was “sacked” by the Goths and Visigoths and Vandals, there was no conventional invasion, nor any widespread destruction of the city – the Germans merely moved into town and started living as Romans, until Rome ceased to be.
By JJ
May 29, 2007 12:16 PM | Link to this
By RCH
May 29, 2007 10:54 AM | Link to this
Debbie and Deegee Its remarkable that when we want to spend money on a program on our Ga. children that it is not as important as spending trillions on illegals. Deegee , lets solve the meth mouth problem the same way. Lets just make it legal. So long people sit in their own homes and drug themselves into oblivion, I don’t care if their heads rot off.
deegee and Debbie, don’t give this racist piece of trash the opening he’s looking for to start his race baiting of Mexicans here today. The guy is absolute klansman scum
By RCH
May 29, 2007 12:39 PM | Link to this
JJ Oh yes,What liberals do when confronted with a statement they cannot refute. A Racist. I consider myself a libertarian. We are willing to spend trillions to help illegals but it is like pulling teeth to help our own needy.And since our own needy can be of any colour explain that J.J.? And if you read the article about meth mouth , you would find those were mostly ” white males” not Mexicans. I was simply making a comparison that if it gets too difficult to solve a problem it seems the easiest road to take is to make it legal. If it is too difficult to stymie illegal drugs then lets do the same thing we did for illegal immigration. Make it legal.
By JJ
May 29, 2007 12:44 PM | Link to this
You showed up on this blog the very day the immigration bill was announced. Since that day you have wanted to talk of nothing else but that issue. Your racism has reared it’s ugly head on numerous occassions since then and you let no opportunity pass to bash immigrants. Your agenda is obvious RCH and you are really not even worth acknowledging anymore.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 12:51 PM | Link to this
J.J Still name calling. I wounder how many of peach care recipients are of colour? I never knew that being racist was one who upholds the law!
By JJ
May 29, 2007 1:12 PM | Link to this
Yeah RCH, you and D.A. (convicted felon) King. The shining lights of justice. Your agenda is extremely transparent RCH. Now don’t you, Chip Rogers, and the illustrious convicted felon, D.A. King have a klan meeting or something to attend?
By RCH
May 29, 2007 1:20 PM | Link to this
JJ Still can’t answer the question can you. Something else to think about. I hear the statement frequently that these people can be absorbed into the system; that we can afford it. Then why can’t we afford to fund peach care. Why?
By antiRCH
May 29, 2007 1:24 PM | Link to this
Immigration myths and reality Examining claims about immigration reform
MYTH: Illegal immigrants take jobs from Americans.
Reality: Nearly half of the nation’s low-skilled jobs are filled by foreign-born workers, many here illegally, some here with work visas. Illegal immigrants represent 20 percent to 30 percent of the workforce in certain segments of the economy, including some very important to Georgia, such as construction, farming and poultry. Employers in all these industries have reported problems filling jobs with American workers over the last decade. There are simply not enough native-born workers to meet the demand. The Department of Labor estimates the American economy needs to produce 400,000-500,000 laborers in unskilled jobs every year. It’s no coincidence that’s roughly the number of immigrants who have illegally entered the country each year over the last decade.
By antiRCH
May 29, 2007 1:26 PM | Link to this
MYTH: Illegal immigrants depress wages of Americans.
Reality: The available evidence — and this has been studied thoroughly — is that undocumented laborers in the low-skilled work force have suppressed wages, but only slightly. Had Americans been available for low-skilled jobs in most markets, overall wages indeed would have risen, economists say.
Recently, after immigration officials raided several companies that had a large percentage of undocumented workers, those employers started paying higher wages to attract Americans for the jobs the immigrants left. But problems quickly arose. The turnover rate now among Americans in those same jobs is much higher than with the immigrants, employers discovered. Many of those who did get the jobs quit when they decided they didn’t like the assembly line work. In one Georgia chicken plant that lost most of its illegal immigrant work force, the company had to eventually import prison labor and bus workers in from a homeless shelter to meet production demands. Many of the American workers applying for the jobs flunked the company’s drug test.
By Jackie
May 29, 2007 1:26 PM | Link to this
Is the social program of building overpriced Iraqi schools costing the taxpayers too much money.
The Inspector General’s reports indicates we have been had, yet, the neocons feel spending what it costs in Iraq for one week is too much to spend on children in GA. What a motley crew!!!
By antiRCH
May 29, 2007 1:27 PM | Link to this
MYTH: Illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes.
Reality: It is easy to avoid paying income taxes if you are paid in cash for day labor and the boss doesn’t keep any record of the transaction. That clearly happens, especially with day laborers. But the majority of working-age illegal immigrants are on a payroll and routinely have federal and state income taxes withheld from their checks. They also pay sales taxes on goods and services, fuel taxes at the pump, excise taxes on telephone services and user fees imposed by federal, state and local governments. Moreover, if they are on a payroll, they also pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for which, if they remain illegal, they will never receive a benefit. Economists estimate the Social Security trust fund gets $7 billion a year from the paychecks of illegal immigrants in the U.S. holding false Social Security numbers.
By antiRCH
May 29, 2007 1:29 PM | Link to this
MYTH: We don’t have an immigration problem. We have an enforcement problem.
Reality: Why not simply enforce the laws on the books? Because, as a practical matter it is impossible. Over the last year — the busiest in the last decade for immigration officials — just more than 220,000 immigrants were deported. It took a special infusion of money to track them down, and these were immigrants with known criminal records and outstanding deportation orders, whose cases are easily adjudicated.
Congress could not afford to appropriate the money necessary to launch a huge, law-enforcement effort to track down 12 million illegal immigrants, house them while they await hearings and then go through the legal process of deporting them. While they may be here illegally, our justice system demands they are treated fairly. Besides money, the process takes time.
Most opponents of legalization instead propose a strategy called “attrition through enforcement.” By emphasizing the threat of deportation, and selectively issuing deportation orders in a few targeted immigrant communities, life would become so difficult many of those here illegally would leave voluntarily.
Advocates of this method are most likely to be supporters of local ordinances, such as the one Cherokee County passed last year demanding landlords check the immigration status of prospective renters. These laws are aimed at the same thing — discouraging immigrants from staying in the country. But such a strategy could wind up hurting more than it helps.
Rather than returning to their home countries, the immigrants would more likely relocate to other jobs elsewhere in this country, or they would retreat further into the shadows of the economy. Even with the high-profile, federal raids on large employers over the last year, and after Georgia adopted its own stringent statutes strictly limiting what benefits illegal immigrants can receive, there appears to have been no resulting outflow of illegal immigrants from the state. An estimated 500,000 remain in Georgia.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 1:40 PM | Link to this
* antiRCH* I never argued that these people are not needed, they are.And I would like them here legally. Studies have shown that as soon individuals have legal status and more options they will leave this type of work for higher paying jobs.Hince you will have this turnover again. At this point and time you must be a U.S. citizen or the child most be so. If you suddenly swell the ranks of the poor immigrant what will be the result? Since we cannot pay for peach care now what effect will this sudden impact have?
By antiRCH
May 29, 2007 1:55 PM | Link to this
Swell the ranks, RCH? You just talked in a circle as round as the outer perimeter. But trying to decipher the song and dance you just performed are we to believe that as soon as 12 million immigrants gain legal status they will suddenly “upgrade” to better jobs? In spite of the low level of their educations that you have so many times pointed out in the past? And once these immigrants have rubbed the genie and better jobs popped out that others will fill the ranks of the recently upgraded immigrants? Are you that stupid, or do you need to go back and clear all that smoke from the hall of mirrors that you tried to put on us?
By CollegeProfessor
May 29, 2007 1:58 PM | Link to this
Damn RCH! Talk about someone in need of a little more education! Get help somewhere RCH.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 2:08 PM | Link to this
antiRCH You proved my point.Lets stick with peach care.When these individuals are made citizens, if they fall below a certain income level their children will become eligible for peach care. As you yourself stated many will. Since peach care on on the verge of insolvency , what further negative impact will this have. If we cannot pay for it now, what makes you think we will then. Its not smoke and mirrors its called fisical responsibiliy!
By deegee
May 29, 2007 2:09 PM | Link to this
“So long people sit in their own homes and drug themselves into oblivion, I don’t care if their heads rot off.”
RCH, they don’t sit in their own homes. That’s the problem. Apparently they get out a little bit more than you do.
By JohnD
May 29, 2007 2:12 PM | Link to this
antiRCH,
The withholding tax argument is not necessarily so. Illegals most often claim 10-15 withholding exemptions and by doing so they eliminate any federal or state income tax withholding.
The last study I saw indicated a $90 billion drain on the US economy for the care of illegals, even after calculating the benefit from legal aliens. The five-year cost would then amount to $450 billion.
The cost to deport suddenly starts to look very reasonable when compared to the ongoing drain on the school, health care and welfare systems.
Simply referring to a position as a myth does not a myth then make. You make a lot of relevant “sounding” points without any attribution.
None of your arguments can compensate for the fact that our government has condoned this illegality for purely political purposes.
Simply put, why should any laws be enforced if the most openly abused law is not? We just return to the “Dodge City” way of life and those who can protect their families and property will and those who cannot will…die!
At least we are away from the ad Hominem attacks by JJ who apparently has only one position – anyone who disagrees with him is a racist, a bigot or a xenophobe.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 2:15 PM | Link to this
* College Professor* Unfortunately, I work in the real world not the theoretical of academia.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 2:28 PM | Link to this
JohnD It seems rather odd that I support peach care while JJ calls me a racist.Sixtyfive percent of recipients are of color. Oh well I guess the KKK will expel me. Do you think the new black panther party will try to recruit me?
By deegee
May 29, 2007 2:35 PM | Link to this
JohnD, how do you know what illegals most often do? What insight do you have into the illegal immigrant community? Recounting your experience would be fascinating to us.
By spaceman109
May 29, 2007 2:41 PM | Link to this
yes, we need to enforce existing law concerning illegal immigrants. the powers-that-be in washington want no such enforcement since their paymasters in corporate america would lose a lot of cheap labor.
i still have had no coherent answer to the question i posed this past sunday: if we were to get rid of all illegals….who would help harvest the fruits and veggies?
By RCH
May 29, 2007 2:50 PM | Link to this
Bloggers I didn’t want to get into the immigration subject. Just wanted to point out the absurdity that is often made that it has no neg. financial impact.When a large number of children is added to this almost bankrupt program something is going to have to give. And I think you and I will be the ones giving. (higher taxes)
By deegee
May 29, 2007 2:54 PM | Link to this
spaceman109, here’s your answer. Colorado passed tough illegal immigration laws to drive out illegal workers and they are asking prisoners to volunteer to harvest the fields. At $.60 an hour it’s not easy finding volunteers.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_4527.cfm
By catlady
May 29, 2007 2:54 PM | Link to this
Is antiRCH Mike King? Cause those myths are his op ed in today’s paper?
By spaceman109
May 29, 2007 3:06 PM | Link to this
deegee…. an interesting concept, although there likely would be nowhere near enough prisoners to help harvest crops since i would bet most of them are at least medium security.
also, we cannot have prisoners making money. they might actually be able to support themselves when they get out of prison.
By GALEO
May 29, 2007 3:10 PM | Link to this
And Mike King is spot on Catlady. Your point is?
By JohnD
May 29, 2007 3:20 PM | Link to this
deegee,
I doubt you will find this fascinating but here goes.
I am a CPA who has small to medium sized business clients.
Those businesses that employ Hispanics, both male and female, have a disproportionately high number of those employees who claim large withholding exemptions (10-15). Combined with relatively low wage rates of $9-15 per hour the result is a paycheck without federal or state taxes withheld.
The Hispanic portion of their work force is the segment using the tax dodge scheme even though others may be immigrants, both legal and illegal.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 3:24 PM | Link to this
Sorry Catlady,GALEO you call that “spot on”? It seems Mr. King forgets one key word in his reporting. The law in Cherokee county was never passed to discourage immigrants from renting. Try the term “illegal immigrants” from renting. What a creative twist of words.
By antiRCH
May 29, 2007 3:32 PM | Link to this
And guess what RCH! Illegals are STILL renting in Cherokee County. Much to you and your klan buddies dismay. LMAO!
By K C Otto, MD
May 29, 2007 3:36 PM | Link to this
PeachCare, Medicaid and Medicare are merely government-controlled insurance subsidies. They do more to block and restrict access to health care than provide it. Before these programs—basically insurance industry entitlements—existed, the underpriviledged got better access to health services through the public health departments and public hospitals than they do now.
Health care costs would plummet if these insurance entitlements were eliminated completely and services provided directly to the people who need them.
By Thomas
May 29, 2007 3:41 PM | Link to this
This immigration controversy is quite the moot point. After their return Congress and the Senate will very quickly pass a bill or the status quo will prevail. Either way you nativist xenophobes lose. The closer it gets to 08 the better deal the immigrants are going to get. The best deal for you klan types is already on the table. It’s only going to get worse for you.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 3:47 PM | Link to this
* DR.* Is it correct to believe that these programs lowered the cost, but yet eliminated some services to do exactly that. Discourage the use of public hospital and ER’s which tend to be very expensive.
By spaceman109
May 29, 2007 3:51 PM | Link to this
the cherokee county ordinance which forbade landlords from renting to illegal immigrants was deeply flawed in one way: how would a landlord know whether documentation provided by prospective renters was legitimate? landlords cannot depend on law enforcement databases since a) no one but law enforcement personnel can access such databases…and b) who can claim that database info is absolutely 100 percent correct?
By deegee
May 29, 2007 3:54 PM | Link to this
JohnD, The low income people you are describing would be eligible for the earned income tax credit if they were able to file a tax return. If you take the median income of $12.00 an hour and assume a head of household with 2 children, the tax liability would be a wash after the EITC.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 3:57 PM | Link to this
Thomas I agree some type of bill will pass. However,the more time that passes the more contained this bill will be. Remember 70% of voters are against this bill. Congress was not expecting this type of outcry. Why do you think they tried to rush it through? And you and I both know this bill will not work. People vote their pocketbooks and after hearing the potential cost they are a little flabbergasted!
By antiRCH
May 29, 2007 4:03 PM | Link to this
Bush chastised those who say the proposal offers amnesty to illegal immigrants. He called it empty political rhetoric.
Listen up RCH.
By Thomas
May 29, 2007 4:07 PM | Link to this
What’s your point RCH? 99 9/10s of businesses are for it. Who wins that one? The immigrants that are here right now are going to be legal no matter what bill is passed and all the whining from you and da boys down at the local klavern won’t stop that. You’re like the tree falling in the forest.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 4:11 PM | Link to this
AntiRCH It is strange that many of you hate Bush on all his policies except this bill. I wounder why his approval numbers are so low. Can they go lower? If he signs this bill they will. What makes you think I am a Bush lover. Obviously you don’t know what Libertarian means. Also look up the word criminal.The means doesnt always justify the end!
By deegee
May 29, 2007 4:11 PM | Link to this
The only place you can find 70% of people opposed to immigration reform is on the FairUS website. A more representative sample of public opinion gathered from CBS, USA Today, Fox, NBC, etc, is below.
http://www.pollingreport.com/immigration.htm
By Thomas
May 29, 2007 4:21 PM | Link to this
When did I ever say that I hate Bush RCH? I love the guy. Especially his immigration desires.
By RCH
May 29, 2007 4:23 PM | Link to this
Thomas What do you expect,cheap labor.My question is do those same businesses later look for even cheaper labor.More illegals willing to work for even less. And on the other side of the coin who will pay for all those social services now granted. You have seen the numbers. What do you think? By the way I have been thrown out of the Klan for supporting peach care, since a large majority of recipients are of color. DegeeThat is a Fox poll of registered voters.
By deegee
May 29, 2007 4:32 PM | Link to this
Ooooh, A Fox poll. That’s very different. Nevermind.
By catlady
May 29, 2007 4:43 PM | Link to this
My point, GALEO, was that if antiRCH is not Mike King, he/she needs to give attribution to that which she/he copied from the paper. Nothing more. Although I can refute 3 of his 4 myth claims.
BTW, most of the Latino children I teach (50-60 per year) are on Medicaid or Peachcare, which they can get because they were born in the US of parents who are illegal aliens. In other words, they were born HERE because of an illegal act (immigration) by their parents.
By catlady
May 29, 2007 4:52 PM | Link to this
I find Mr. Wooten’s premise very funny, coming from him: that by decrying the claim that “if you are against Peachcare in its current form, you are against children”, since many times he and his supporters seem to have said, “If you are against the war, you are against our soldiers.” Or other groups using the term racist, or xenophobic or (you fill in the blank) to try to undermine those who do not agree with them.
By Entiende
May 29, 2007 5:02 PM | Link to this
Refute away catlady. Regardless. 12 million people aren’t going anywhere. What is it about that so hard for you to understand? And you are a teacher? Must be true what they say about that cut and paste curriculum.
By Cliff
May 29, 2007 5:05 PM | Link to this
You anti immigration fanatics remind me of a stupid dog trying to catch his tail. You guys are sure fire losers with this issue. Like everyone else with a shred of common sense has said here, they aren’t going anywhere.
By Hiring illegals
May 29, 2007 5:15 PM | Link to this
I have never made so much money with my illegal immigrant projects.
Go amnesty!
By JohnD
May 29, 2007 5:57 PM | Link to this
deegee,
You are in way over your head, in fact you are making my argument.
antiRCH indicated the illegals pay withholding and then walk away from the money, thus paying tax.
Now you come along and propose the EIC will negate any tax they would pay and therefore make the argument against their payment of tax.
First an illegal, even he files, cannot claim the EIC unless his family is also here. To do so he would have to be here legally and then would become an even larger burden on the American taxpayer by receiving tax dollars he did not pay.
Further, a resident alien must include the family worldwide income if he (she) files a return as a married person.
You open Pandora’s box with your EIC suggestion for aliens, legal or illegal, and raise the issue, heretofore ignored, of the additional drain imposed by the EIC.
By JohnD
May 29, 2007 6:02 PM | Link to this
Win or lose on the immigration issue, those who support enforcement of the law are correct.
Most interesting is the pro amnesty group and their support of the Congress and White House even though their motives are corrupt.
By Cynthia Armistead
May 29, 2007 7:05 PM | Link to this
It isn’t just an issue of being able to afford premiums, but being able to afford co-pays.
My child has multiple chronic illnesses. She takes more than ten maintenance medications. Her migraine preventive alone costs more than $700 a month without insurance. When we had private insurance, the co-pays for just RXs and maintenance doctor visits, IF she didn’t get sick with anything else, were more than $500 a month. That was on top of the $450/month premium. $950 a month is not negligible for most people I know. It is 75% of the survivor’s benefit that supports me and my daughter.
I’m no welfare queen. I worked hard as long as my body allowed it. My daughter’s father worked until he died of leukemia. Now I’m a disabled woman whose Social Security claim is still working its way through the system. My daughter and I are supported mostly by the kindness of my life partner. We don’t qualify for any kind of “welfare” because 1) “welfare” limits in Georgia are insanely low; and 2) Medicaid won’t even consider our case because I do have a Social Security claim in process.
Would I rather have her on private insurance? Absolutely! There are fewer and fewer doctors who will treat children who have PeachCare/Medicaid. In fact, the attitude of their staffers changes completely when they learn that a prospective patient is a bum - oh, excuse me, a PeachCare patient. IF they accept that coverage at all, it’s often at one location, maintained as a tax write-off, where the doctor sees patients once a month or so (that’s certainly true of the Egleston neurologists we’ve been trying to see). On a recent visit to the ER, a doctor initially ordered a sinus and chest x-rays, a full lab workup, and an IV for my daughter - until he learned that she was on PeachCare. Then he said, “Oh. Um, do we have any Gatorade?” She had no x-rays at all, no IV, and went home with a prescription for doxycycline.
When I started working back in the mid-80s, it was fairly normal for health insurance policies to have a $200 per person yearly deductible, with a maximum of maybe three deductibles in a family, after which all expenses were covered for the year at a specified rate (usually 80% - several of my employers even provided 100% coverage). There was usually a maximum out-of-pocket limit for each family per year, after which everything would definitely be covered at 100%.
Today’s policies have no such limit. Every single office visit and prescription has a co-pay. Every trip to a diagnostic facility, boom, another co-pay (or if the doctor’s office sent the labs out, even if you didn’t know it, you get a bill in the mail for another co-pay). If you have to go the the emergency room or get admitted to the hospital, you have no idea how many bills you’ll receive over the next few months from various parties - not just the hospital, but random physicians and labs and so on, all wanting their co-pays or more. There is no ceiling now, no protection at all from financial disaster.
No wonder medical bills are one of the leading causes of bankruptcies!
Stop fussing about the lack of money for PeachCare. There’s plenty of money available. Personally, I think a great deal could be had from close scrutiny of lawmakers’ luxuries, but they’d fuss about that, wouldn’t they?
So how about starting with excluding anybody who isn’t a US citizen from PeachCare and Medicaid? How much would be saved by making adult addicts responsible for their own rehab if they want to dry out? Stopping fighting the “war on drugs” that’s just a load of hooey? (Gosh - then maybe more of Atlanta’s cops could focus on protecting citizens instead of shooting them!) Cutting out luxuries like internet access, television, and movies in prisons? Stopping the prosecution of victimless crimes to free up room in those prisons? Sentencing those guilty of property crimes to restitution and putting them to hard work somewhere to actually do something useful so we have room to lock up the violent offenders and KEEP them there, without building new prisons? How about removing all laws that have anything to do with what adults do in private with each other? Hitting any legislator who wastes state resources on nonsense like suggesting laws against sex toys or changing the names of roads or proclamations of dill pickle festival days with great big fines plus costs incurred? Requiring that any individual in public office or employment who does something utterly stupid like mounting a Biblical display (or a Menorah, or any other religious whatsis that can be expected to draw the state into legal battles) in a state office/place be immediately removed, barred from ever holding any such office or position again, and personally reimburse all of the state’s costs?
OH! I’ve got it! We’ll establish a “family values” tax! Every time a politician or other public figure plays the “family values” card or uses a phrase like “welfare queen,” he or she has to pay into the FV tax fund, which will be used solely to fund PeachCare. What’s fair - $5 an instance? I think that’s about right. PeachCare should be funded for years to come!
Health care just isn’t a priority for the current administration - or for you, Wooten. If it were, funding it wouldn’t be an issue. The U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world, and gets the worst results in return of any “first world” country. Look around - there are no “welfare queens.” There are just people like me and other parents, grandparents, and foster parents who are trying to take care of our children. Trying to demonize us for being good parents is insane.
By GF
May 31, 2007 12:00 PM | Link to this
All of you ya-hoos get a grip! Those who always point to some other issue as needing attention worse than the issue at hand obviously has ADD. There will always be a multitude of issues that are equally as bad (i.e., the war in Iraq, illegal immigrants, etc.)but lets stay focused on the issue of which Wooten presents . . that of the PeachCare debacle. I really like what catlady suggests …she is right on point with her suggestions for reining in PeachCare. But, who is this Jim who is 59 years old and who is a former Army Officer, former state legislator, and a regional and national sales manager with a 12 year old still at home and who was getting PeachCare?? Having worked with a health plan for 15 years and in government, there is enough blame for all invovled. The health care industry, the insured who use their health care, the government with their entitlement programs and those who work the system to benefit from such programs. There is no one entity free from fault and no one entity who hasn’t contributed to the mess in which we are left. Pointing fingers won’t solve anything. EVERYBODY has contributed to the mess. So, the next time some legislator comes up with a great idea like PeachCare we all should be so afraid. There has never been a government program that started out with a meaningful purpose that didn’t end up a taxpayer’s nightmare!
By Dave
June 4, 2007 3:00 PM | Link to this
Jim,
You just got back from a trip to Cuba? Is Cynthia trying on last shot to turn you before you retire?