From Restore Fairness blog. Although a federal judge struck down on some of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB 1070’s major provisions in a critical victory, the untrue notion that Washington has lost control of the border remains. Within this atmosphere of hate and misinformation, President Obama signed a $600 million bill that increases appropriations for border security in a piecemeal approach to immigration reform, leading to profound disappointment at Congress’s decision to propose, promote, and pass border enforcement bill HR 6080. 

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In Nebraska, a loophole in a newly changed law intended to provide safe havens for infants born to teenage mothers has had the unintended consequence of allowing parents of children of any age to legally abandon them. Legal abandonment has long been the insurance of last resort for parents of chronically ill children forced to buy insurance on the individual market. But now even healthy children are being abandoned.

Enter Nebraska, where a well intentioned legal change has illustrated the difficulty of preserving families when jobs disappear.

Parents of even healthy children who might have been able to care for children are leaving children as old as 17 at designated child abandonment safe havens. Not wanting their children to starve, living in cars, etc, many have been giving their children up to become wards of the state, where they can receive health insurance, dental care, and food.

Enter President Elect Obama. Obama has promised to "change" healthcare in 2012 while keeping the expensive insurance companies in the loop, mandating parents to "insure" their children, making it affordable by giving them the "choice" of buying high deductible health care plans or capped plans, if that is all they can afford. (They are supposed to put the thousands of dollars they are saving in tax free medical savings accounts so that when bills come, they will be ready, however, few people have the money. Also, IF they even momentarily drop coverage for a sick child (for example, are 15 minutes late with a payment) and get sick during that time, they will be dropped and not be able to buy insurance again. Also, many parents will not be able to afford individual insurance for their children if their chldren have chronic diseases because the insurance companies quoted profitable "fair price" will be based on their very small group, and priced by its risk. If one member of a family sized group has high risk, the fair price is a high price.)

Some "choice"! High deductible health plans will leave parents struggling with hundreds or thousands of dollars in unpaid bills before they reach deductibles, and all expenses over lifetime or monthly or yearly caps. People will see bills that represent costs that they are not able to cope with. This will lead to an epidemic in child abandonment.

No efforts will be made by individuals fighting for their survival against the system, each alone and isolated. No realistic government efforts will be made to contain costs, as are done with Medicare.

This will lead to a boon for faith based adoption agencies as children are given up by their desperate birth parents.

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I don't know if anyone is watching PBS, but I am watching a show on PBS that is describing a horiffic story about a US company, K*R, a subsidiary of Halli***ton, a large US company with government connections.

The show is about a process of human trafficking, and it spotlights the case of 12 missing workers. the show describes a process they used of getting - and keeping workers in Iraq. Its incredibly heartbreaking.

The show describes a process in which the people who buy the workers from Third World human trafficers for these contractors are insulated from liability. There appears to be a huge human pipeline that enables these companies to make huge profits because they pay their workers, who often come from South Asian countries and HAVE TO PAY BROKERS FOR THEIR JOBS.. very low wages, then base their contract prices on what similar workers would make in the US. they actually bragged about this! They took their passports when they entered Iraq so they could not leave.

The 12 people were kitchen workers - They were told they were going to be working in hotels in Jordan, but then they were instead brought to Iraq by people K*R described as 'subcontractors' and abandoned by the side of a highway where they were kidnapped by an Iraqi terrorist army, held for ransom, which it appears was ignored, and executed.

Is anyone watching this? Its a heartbreaking story.

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