Sorry for
posting another article on migrants, but it is an important topic these days,
and this one deals with the controversial practice of providing healthcare to
migrants without legal status. Are you
persuaded by this writer's arguments? Should Slovakia follow in the lead of the
Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Portugal and provide limited care
for those who need it?
In this article, the author argues that Ms Toussaint contributed to the society and actively tried to legalize herself. However, Canadian immigration policy states that employing undocumented migrants is illegal, so there was no proper way to tax her payrolls, although some of her employers reported doing it. Ms Toussaints also legalized her stay in Canada in a strange manner. After coming to Canada, she decided to stay in there and overstayed her visa. Although she had been there since 1999, she first requested for the permanent residency in 2005. This suggests she was either not aware of the visa expiration, or decided to stay undocumented. As the immigration procedures should be launched immediately after the decision to emigrate, there is no factual claim for public healthcare. In other words, Ms Toussaint was lucky to obtain the permanent residency regarding her previous immigration policy violations.
ReplyDeleteIn the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Portugal and the United Kingdom, the government is able to provide all inhabitants with proper health care. I consider this decision great, as these countries experience immigration and actually reduces health care spendings, as it is believed that many people do have "illegal immigrant" status, and this may help to countermeasure potential epidemics and raising the standard of living. On the other hand, these countries are very developed economies, so they can afford this with relative ease.
To conclude this, the author's arguments in the article were not persuasive, as Ms Toussaint's actions seem to be careless. I am also not able to fully understand what general statement UN committee created, because the author only writes they did not support “health tourism” and consider Ms Toussaints fate unlawful. However, the idea of free health care for all inhabitants is good. It provides a safer environment for all people in the state, and more importantly, as we are all humans, we are should try to help ourselves out whenever it is possible.
This article parses one of the most controversial global problems associated not only with immigrants. I’m convinced that proper health care shouldn’t be exclusively just for “the chosen ones”. Gladly, United Nations Human Rights Committee, as stated in the article,came to the same outcome.
ReplyDeleteHealth care shouldn’t be assessed neither according to people's financial situation, nor their citizenship. Immigrants are people too, like all of us. It doesn’t make any sense to me to exclude them from health care, taking in mind that Canada is considered to be one of the most liberal countries in the world. It’s one thing to seek asylum and get rejected, but to be in a life danger, nobody asks for that. It could happen to anyone anytime and people should keep that on their minds. Human health is fragile and shouldn’t be taken for granted, as well as something one could possibly exploit. The article also refers to studies showing that providing the health care could actually save money for Canada. The thing is, that the charity or emergency health care immigrants are strained rely on, is not sufficient. Thus eventually, they are gonna need more of solicitude anyway. That generally costs much more than just normal health care.
Moreover, it was mentioned, that most of the Canadian illegal immigrants are even contributing members of society. In many cases, it’s hard to prolong their visa or receive permanent residency. The policies are complicated and the whole process takes way too much time. In addition, it costs the applicants insane amounts of money. It’s not an exception that after months or even years of waiting, immigrants in Canada simply can’t afford the cost of the permanent residency application, as mentioned. Therefore, I would suggest to make changes in these laws in the first place. In my opinion, the admission costs for the people who already work and live there should be lowered. They could finally afford it become proper citizens. By accepting more immigrants, Canada could experience higher economic growth. More importantly, it could solve the controversy with health care.