Trump administration moves to deprive sick children of lifesaving care

Fish, Roman, etc... are on hold with their doctors to check if they need to be concerned about still being in the same condition after four hours...

Oh, geez, now you've triggered Fish and we'll have to hear about that lady in Manila with the Dorchester phone number again.

WE FOUND THE FASCISM ENABLER!!!!!!

“Why does a whole family come? Here in the US, if a child needs St. Judes, a parent or guardian is welcomed but certainly not the whole family. In the US, if a child is sick - the whole family doesn't just stop. What am I missing?”

Cultural literacy.

While I certainly feel for these families, I've been told over and over how much better healthcare is in other countries.

Are you five years old and/or have never been outside the US? You seem to think that "other countries" are just one big blob and they're all the same.

Why does a whole family come?

The whole family DOESN'T come. But, given the seriousness of the conditions for which these children are being treated, their chances aren't great even in a US hospital, and that may be where they die. If your kid had to go somewhere else to a hospital for treatment of a life-threatening condition, and that treatment might not work out, where would you be?

I speak as someone with a severely disabled sibling who has spent more time in hospitals than I'd like and watched parents struggle emotionally, financially, etc.

And you think that gives you a ticket to crap on others who are less fortunate. Got it.

(straightening necktie, getting ready to dodge lbb milkshake...)

" 'These families are all here receiving treatment that is unavailable in their home countries, ' "

Let's look at the care that Big Papi got when he was shot in the DR. They took care of him, kept him alive and stabilized him. He was there for a bit, then came to Mass General for follow-up treatment. I wonder who paid for it. Any country that can provide that level of emergency care for a gunshot wound should be able to handle, say, kidney dialysis. There's a place on Hyde Park Ave near Grandma's bakery that does outpatient dialysis. It's not a big deal, technically. Honduras, for example cannot do it? It's not a question of can they but who will pay for it? Maybe it's the health care [ed] plan system in that country that sucks, not the medical treatment system. Travel to Jamaica? Buy the travel medical insurance. They don't take health plan cards and they demand cash.
They are here because they cannot get that level of care in their home countries, not because it doesn't exist, but because it doesn't exist for them.

Except for Venezuela. Venezuela's screwed.

As far as separating kids from required treatments, I would think that courts would hold the deportations in abeyance until one side or the other proved their case.

Are you new here? Fishy has been milking that story for years now.

From one source I heard that most people in this circumstance came here legally with a visa and either fell ill while they were here or came for treatment that is taking longer or their condition worsened. Here's one example:

"Shonell Norville, a 37-year-old from Guyana, said she and her 7-year-old son, Joaquim, are facing deportation when their medical deferred action expires in March. They came on a tourist visa in August 2016 to visit Joaquim’s grandparents, who are US citizens, and were visiting Franklin Park Zoo when Joaquim fell ill and was diagnosed with epilepsy, Shonell Norville said. Since then, Joaquim has had major problems. His lungs collapsed when he had a seizure, requiring doctors to perform a tracheotomy. He also developed an infection in his colon, requiring the removal of his large intestine and the use of a colostomy bag."

That's why all the rich foreigners fly right over Logan to get to Canada instead of all those crappy hospitals in DC, Baltimore, NY and Boston.

A quick search says that Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are the two wealthiest individuals in the US, and both of them have their primary residence in Washington state. Number three on the list is Warren Buffett who lives in Nebraska.

What is the point of this? Well, the people who claim that the US has the best health care in the world are essentially making an equivalent claim that Washington and Nebraska are the two wealthiest states because of those three residents.

Someone working below the poverty line in those states benefits as much from the wealth of those three as a US citizen who is sick but has no access to our first class or cutting edge medical care because they have no insurance or limited coverage. That's what makes the health care system bad.

Pay attention to when people make claims about how good or bad health care is here, there has been an intentional muddying of the water between health care and health care system to protect the interest of certain elements within the system.

The fact that in a rich country of 300 million people you can find specialists and specialty facilities that you can't find in, say, Iceland has, of course, very little relevance to the question of whether America's healthcare system, on the whole, provides better or worse outcomes than Iceland's.

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