>"The Mexican Invasion, and that is what it is -VIVA
>AZTLAN- is a concerted effort by the Mexican government to
>Populate and Separate our SW states. Their governments have
>stated it openly and it's seen in their Mexican Flag waving
>Demonstrations. You've got to be trying to miss it if you
>don't see it or you may be one of those that just wish to see
>us fail."
>
>I guess I fail to see the political point of an invasion where
>millions of Mexican immigrants sweep over the border, take
>largely menial jobs, and provide the backbone of the
>Southwest's economy.

Well, obviously I don't see what the conspiracy is. However, there are unpleasant side effects to illegal immigration. For one, it wreaks utter havok on healthcare costs. For two, it lowers baseline wages for those 'menial' jobs, that many people depend on to survive. The combination of those two factors is why the % of people with no healthcare in this country is rising.

> It's more believable to me that
>individuals see a chance to make 5x or 10x their current
>salary and are willing to do what they have to do to take it,
>border be damned. They're not gathering in El Secret Mexican
>Plotting Dome, hatching schemes to take hundreds of thousands
>of backbreaking agricultural jobs in a miserably hot climate,
>saying "That'll show those gringos!"

To be fair, these are also not the only types of jobs that illegals work.

>Their arrival doesn't make America "fail". Countless waves of
>previous immigrants (my ancestors included, and yours more
>likely than not) came here undereducated, with little grasp of
>English, but willing (or just forced, depending on their
>continent of origin) to work on farms, mines, mills,
>railroads, or whatever else was available. Just like the
>current Latino immigrants, they put up with xenophobic morons
>yelling "Go Back To _______". And we're the nation we are
>precisely because they didn't go back.

Well, lets not glorify the past. Back in those times, the healthcare system wasn't as it was today. People used to get sent to Arizona as late as the 50's for having tuburculosis(sp?). I mean, it does certainly cause an effect on our *CURRENT* system, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that our *CURRENT* system is stupid.

Regarding healthcare, a few minor examples. The tax structure built to support our military spending and bloated federal/state governments have caused cost-of-living to grow exponentially since 'the days of yore'. How many jobs have pensions these days? Pretty much strictly government and union jobs. The operating costs, therefore, of places like hospitals, have driven drastically. Additionally, every step along the way has become more expensive, from drug research to packaging to shipping of pharmaceuticals to staffing pharmacies.

To add to that, other countries place limits on how much drugs can cost. Their share of the costs, therefore, get passed back to the US. This already creates a very expensive situation for our healthcare. Toss in that people typically live longer, yada yada yada.

Now enter into illegal immigration. In every place I've seen, you cannot be denied medical aid in a hospital emergency room. Illegal immigrants and people without healthcare therefore rack up large bills which then go into credit. However, people default, go bankrupt, or in the case of illegals, merely cannot be held accountable for those costs. Those hospitals still need to make bottom line, therefore, we foot the bill for those costs.

All these things drive the cost of healthcare so high, that you truly require health care insurance in order to adequately provide for your health services. The way health insurance companies get their premium pool for an area, is doubling what they spent last year. Medicare, additionally, regularly declines full payment for medical services, which causes doctors to raise their rates and 'up-code' more aggressively against other payers. The net result is exorbitant healthcare insurance costs that are padded by their near 100% profit margins.

And while illegals aren't the sole cause, they're certainly not an ignorable portion of the costs. The way our system is tightly strung together, imbalances like illegal immigration wreak financial havok on the low wage earning blue collar class in this country.

>There's a reason Washington won't touch the illegal
>immigration issue. They know how much the country as a whole
>is strengthened by it.

They don't touch it because its good for them. They aren't part of the population I stated above. The right benefits because big business benefits and upper middle class benefits. The left benefits because a large portion of their voters are so far into the low wage earning department that social programs take care of their medical coverage and many of them are tax exempt so this really doesn't apply. Like usual, the people who get screwed most are the ones just above that, who for pride or whatever reason won't play the system.

>valguarnera@carrionfields.com