Emergency visits can be extremely costly, but why pay for them if you don’t have to? Recently, a neighbor of a friend was visiting California and was injured while on the trip. Because they were out of their health care network, they would need to pay out-of-pocket for emergency medical care. The workers in the ER told them not to show their ID and simply claim to be an illegal alien, so their bill wouldn’t cost a dime.
It worked.
Many Americans struggle to pay their medical bills, especially after the market distortions of Obamacare, but now we know there’s another option: lie, cheat, and steal. Because in our country breaking the law apparently gets non-American citizens or Americans who pretend to be illegal aliens “free” health care.
I had a conversation with a rancher in Texas recently who told me he had an 18-wheeler pull over onto the side of the highway and release over 100 illegals onto his property. Within minutes, they were pursued by law enforcement on foot and on four-wheelers. Once caught, instead of being hauled down to the border, they were placed in a van and given food, water, and gift cards. They were then driven to Walmart to use their gift cards on whatever they wanted. Who knows what happened after that.
To make matters worse, last week in my home state of Utah, the state legislature passed out of committee a bill (HB166), which would essentially downgrade the violation of an illegal alien being found with a firearm after breaking into our country. I’ve heard that over the last three years we now have between 100,000 and 300,000 new illegal aliens in Utah. It was recently reported that New York was paying them to fly to our state and get out of theirs.
In fact, late last year, federal law enforcement officers told me that we have Venezuelan gang members in Utah, from St. George all the way up to Logan. So sure, especially now, it certainly makes all the sense to loosen penalties for illegal aliens found with a firearm. If you believe our country has become a clown show, you are correct.
The Utah Legislature also just passed out of committee a piece of legislation (SB128), which increases the monetary thresholds for certain crimes to be more “consistent with inflation.” They fail to take into account that a TV 20 years ago would have cost $3,000, but now costs $500. Apparently, in the thinking of some Utah lawmakers, inflation is driving the need to allow criminals to steal more with less accountability.
Does anybody ask how the burden of inflation is squeezing those who are just barely hanging on? Or the Americans who can barely put food on the table anymore, who will now pay even higher prices at the stores where they shop to cover the cost of all the theft?
It’s as if we’re unable to learn from these types of statutory and enforcement changes in cities from which business owners and productive people are fleeing. Seattle, San Francisco, New York and many other large cities are paying the price for changes that reward the criminals and hurt the working American public.
Our Founders not only were students of history and government, but of human nature. That is the big missing piece in the ideology driving these kinds of destructive policy changes. Incentive structures guide social behavior. It’s not rocket science.
According to Migration Policy, there were approximately 2.5 million illegal aliens that crossed the border last year, a historic high number. Will we continue paying their bills and making illegal activity okay in our country? When I was at the southern border last year, I was told by the U.S. Border Patrol that the cartel controls who comes into America and who doesn’t, depending on how much they’re willing to pay or what they’re willing to do.
Instead of us controlling our borders, the cartel is. And with that comes more drugs, more sex trafficking, and more crime flooding into our country. Rather than dealing rightly with those who break our laws, we roll out the red carpet for them.
Whether it’s “free” health care of “free” gift cards and the like, we know who’s footing the bill. You and I. We cannot afford to incentivize bad behavior and reward it with “free” stuff. We have a duty and obligation to actual, legal Americans to put them first - those who with their blood, sweat, and tears have made our country great.
Carolyn Phippen is a candidate for Utah’s U.S. Senate. She is a wife and a mother of five boys, former Sen. Mike Lee staffer, and resides in Draper, Utah.