In essence, you are saying: "If a political entity wants to spend money, why should anyone else care?" How about: because they're spending taxpayer's money, the taxpayers should care.

Maybe because they know they can pass the costs along to the state, the feds, the insurance companies and those patients who can afford it, just like they do with all the other charity cases.

Because they're providing those services with 90% federal funds?

Mr. Ortega, PJ, sounds like you have a problem with the welfare state, not immigrants. Why not attack the problem at the source? Beats getting played by the Democrats, again.

Robert M: No, we lost that fight. It's over.

The welfare state is what we have. To a certain extent this is inevitable. Given the effect of technology on the demand for labor, it is not neccessarily undesireable.

Now that it is here, the political art of the possible constrains us from fighting the last war, and losing it again.

The question is rather whether a state may defy the strings attached to so-called "federal" money. The law is most clear that it cannot.

If we wish to change this, to "voucherize" all sorts of "revenue sharing," we have much work cut out for us. For decades conservatives has warned of the political effects of federalizing the national economy in terms of loss of states' rights and individual freedom.

No one really listened then, and it is too late to complain now.

PJ,

Then states like California have truly lost the argument that they're being bled dry by providing services to illegals. If CA cannot meet their own 10% match, then their budget problems are their own.

Mr. Gots, that kind of thinking let the Democrats claim credit for the hundred years the Republicans fought for Equal Rights. I would think you could find a better role model then Bob Dole.

I'm confident that New York City taxpayers are perfectly copacetic with this. I'm not, however, familiar with any federal program that reimburses hospitals for treatment of illegal aliens, or anyone else who can't pay and is not on Medicare/Medicaid. If there is, though, then that just pushes this one step further back. If your problem is with paying for hospital bills, not with immigration, then get the government to stop.

Just to expand on that thought, government is not something that just happens to poor bystanding taxpayers.

Robert - Yes, my problem is with the welfare state, not immigrants.

David - In most states, including Massachusetts by my personal knowledge, the Medicaid program will cover everyone who fills out a form that says qualifying circumstances are met. The programs don't check for citizenship and they don't generally check for honesty or accuracy.

It appears that the poor/indigent have access to free health care courtesy of the taxpayer. Why then do we allow the bogus blather that x number of millions in the U.S. are uninsured as if that equates to no access to healthcare.

This issue needs clarification. We, the People are ponying up the immense cost of free health care for millions of our fellows. Why aren't we speaking up about this instead of letting the Kool-Aid drinkers bay at the moon about it 24/7?

erp: The medical insurance crisis, such as it is, has never been about the poor and indigent. The poor and indigent have always had insurance through Medicaid. The uninsured are those with too much income to be eligible for Medicaid or those, like illegal aliens, who are otherwise ineligible.

Federal law requires that the uninsured must be treated when they go to an emergency room. However, no federal government program reimburses the hospital for the cost. That's the medical insurance crisis. There are some state funds that reimburse at least part of the cost.

Massachusetts does have a medical insurance program for low wage workers, called MassHealth. It exists thanks to a waiver of Medicaid regulations from the federal government. As a result, Massachusetts has a lower proportion of uninsured residents than the nation as a whole. Massachusetts has about 400,000 uninsured residents out of a total population of 6.3 million, of whom about 100,000 are eligible for MassHealth.

The aggrandizement of federal power was welcomed when it was to be used for what some thought were good ends, and now that the "context" is different, states' rights are back in fashion.

We warned the contry about this 1n 1964, and all it got us was nasty name-calling.

"Context" is the way Marxists and Nazis look at things, asking what class or race is served by a law or institution. It is disgusting and shameful when they do it and so it is today.

David, I do understand. My point is that one way or another, we pay for everyone who can't or won't pay for medical care themselves. The great unwashed aren't dying in the streets as the lunatic left likes to imply.

I actually have no problem picking up the tab so nobody in this country is denied medical attention, especially kids. It's the demagoguery that drives me crazy.