Sacramento County whistleblower fired: non-emergency healthcare to illegal aliens

From this:
The Sacramento County physician [medical director for that county's indigent services program] fighting to end the county's practice of providing medical care to illegal immigrants was fired earlier this month.

Dr. Gene Rogers said he was terminated Aug. 6 "in retaliation for whistle-blowing."

...In his 2003 suit, Rogers alleged the county was putting public funds at risk by providing nonemergency medical care to undocumented residents -- in violation of federal law...
The case was dismissed on an apparent technicality, and he's appealing. What the SacBee fails to point out is that Rogers claims that U.S. citizens were deprived of services due to the money that was spent on illegal aliens.

There's a sympathetic editorial on the case here. The one firing him was Lynn Frank, that county's Health and Human Services director. Another person mentioned is Program Manager Nancy Gilberti.
Dr. Rogers filed a lawsuit in 2003 after county officials "stonewalled" him when he questioned why they were cutting budgets while still providing non-emergency medical treatment to people who have no legal right to be in the country.

The lawsuit is currently under appeal in federal court, but its impact was felt in the state capital, causing a nervous Latino Legislative Caucus in California last year to push through a bill by state Sen. Deborah Ortiz that explicitly allows counties to "opt" to provide non-emergency medical care to illegal immigrants. Sacramento County also responded, Dr. Rogers said, by seeking to alienate him from his prior relationships with county medical staff and by methodically preparing to fire him - with a little humiliation thrown in along the way...

Comments

_...U.S. citizens were deprived of services due to the money that was spent on illegal aliens._ Even if they weren't, it's obvious that the money spent on services for illegals could be spent on providing more services for legal residents. This kind of thing presents a dilemma for any decent person/society. Just because medical care is deemed "nonemergency" does not mean it is medically unnecessary. On the other hand, clearly you don't want to give carte blanche for illegals to obtain healthcare at taxpayer expense. There are better ways to make sure illegals experience the negative consequences to being here. Workplace enforcement and denying an education to their children would both be better. This would give a great many the push they need to head home.

This is yet another immigration example of 'the horse has left the barn'--choices which should never have to be made if the government was not corrupt on immigration. On the one hand, it makes sense to support public health in part because *you* don't want to catch a disease from somebody. One side, who apparently thinks money grows on trees, just wants to keep providing everything citizens have rights to. Hey, you don't want people driving around without drivers licenses, kids not going to school, etc. do you? So let's give that to everybody regardless of status. The sensible side sees that as a vicious circle and that the only real answer is to keep people out of the country in the first place, primarily through deterrence. Another example is the side who says that there are too many illegals for ICE to deport so let's just give amnesty. I agree that deportation is so inefficient that the practical way to go is attrition for current illegals + deterrence for potential illegals. Look at all the illegals in the news and think about how many of their/our dilemmas would have been precluded by workplace enforcement/employer sanctions. The mixed legal-illegal families and anchor babies--e.g., Elvira would not be in the news because she would have never been able to support herself here. Jose Carranza had a construction job to support himself and likely would have never been in the U.S. to execute college students. Of course, the MSM avoids that side of the story.

Go ahead, take away their jobs. That isn't going to make them go home. At least as long as being unemployed here is better than home. We need to tell the bigots to shut up, stop wetting our pants, and actively _dis_courage the illegals from staying, not just end the many ways we currently _en_courage them. They have no right to be here. They have no right to free healthcare - emergency or otherwise - and neither does anybody else.

Well, apparently they are leaving Oklahoma by the thousands due to the new crackdown . Unfortunately I bet many are heading to sanctuary states like mine...MA where the liberals run the show... into the ground!

_We need to tell the bigots to shut up,..._ I guess we should consult you about who's a "bigot" and who isn't, right?

Sure ok. The bigots are the invaders and their fifth columnists.

Well ,in my view Geraldo is a bigot as he gives carte blanche to his own race to break the law at will. Just another outrageous example of the absence of logic employed by the supporters of the invading 'army.'