healthcare for immigrants

this is a really important and moving article, I hope some of you read it...

A different perspective on the healthcare debate- How do immigrants (both illegal and legal) fit into this cenversation? This article is about a 19 year old LEGAL migrant worker critically injured in a car accident who went into a coma and was deported to Mexico without his parents support. At the time he had a deadly infection and was in critical condition. The aritcle goes on to talk about the difficulties that hospitals face when immigrants with no insurance need long term intensive care. The hospital is required to save their life and stabilize them, bt after that the situation is less clear. There are tons of ethical concerns here, not only about moving a legal resident in citical condition but also the level of treatment they will recieve in Mexican facilities. Ironically, the hospitals that have the highest immigrant populations are also the least sympathetic to these ethical and moral considerations. For them, the financial side straps them into decisions which may be distastful to ordinary citizens. Hospitals are not compensated by the federal government for long term care of illegal or uninsured immigrants. They can discharge them to nursing homes but few of those will take them in for the same reasons.

With the global financial crisis in full swing, can we only expect that situations like these will get worse? The Fed doesnt have enough money to bail out big businesses and still have programs to deal adequately with a big and vulnerable population, so how will this affect hospitals and their decisions to deport fragile patients to inadequate facilities over the border? I just dont understand how we (as a nation build from immigrants) can let this happen!