Conservative Iowa Blogger Thinks Immigrants Deserve Better Health Care?

“Mainstream Iowan,” a blog that is decidedly not mainstream, writes this morning that illegal immigration is “a public health issue for all Americans.”

Under a photo of a young hispanic male wearing a scary SARS mask, the blogger recounts this story:

When doctors told Francisco Santos he had tuberculosis Friday, health officials said the Gwinnett County 17-year-old refused to believe it.

Then the wiry, dark-haired youth refused to submit to any treatment. Worse, he said he was walking out of the Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville and heading back to his home country of Mexico, officials said.

Gwinnett health officials found themselves in a bind. They had a person with a case of active, contagious tuberculosis, refusing treatment and threatening to carry the disease to a foreign country.

Will, the county health attorney, said Santos was detained because he is a public health threat.

“He has active, contagious TB,” Will said Saturday. “He is at risk of communicating that with anybody he comes in contact with.”

Unfortunately, the blogger conflates the public health threat of contagious tuberculosis with the patient’s immigration status, as if that were relevant. In truth, many, many legal Americans do not receive regular screenings for TB, and many who are diagnosed have similar reactions of denial to Santos.

The “public health issue” is a lack of universal, preventative medical care; it is not illegal immigration. But Mainstream Iowan doesn’t want us to realize that, because universal health care for everyone — and particularly universal coverage of illegal immigrants — is not exactly a conservative policy. That said, it seems to be the only viable way to end the epidemic of TB.