Irony on the Border, Part 6: (Legal?) immigrants go to Mexico for health care

The L.A. Times reports in "Healthcare Is Migrating South of the Border" on native-born "Latinos" and (legal?) immigrants who go to Mexico for medical needs.

About 160,000 California workers — farm laborers as well as working-class Latinos employed at hotels, casinos, restaurants and local governments in San Diego and Imperial counties — are getting their annual checkups and having surgeries through health networks south of the border, insurers say...

[An employer] said he can sign up several employees, each at about $100 monthly, for about the same price as one employee in a U.S. plan...

They represent a "positive turn of events for cross-border health coverage... but are another reminder about how sick our health system is in the U.S.," said Dr. Robert K. Ross, president of the California Endowment, a healthcare philanthropy...

Enrollees are typically Mexican citizens legally employed at U.S. companies, either living in Mexico or in the U.S. Many earn only $5 to $7 an hour and could not afford U.S.-based plans. But others are Mexican Americans, some of them in executive-level positions...

"Now let me get this straight. You liberals want universal healthcare. But, at the same time, you want to flood the U.S. with millions of people from another country who'll lower wages for legal workers down to that $5-$7 an hour? Are you people nuts, or just 'liberals?'"

Immigration2005b · Tue, 08/23/2005 - 04:51 · · Importance: 1