The Case For Immigration Insurance

Steve Sailer suggests that immigrants to America should have to buy insurance before coming here so that the country is protected from their misbehavior.

Comments at Takimag:

* The problem with the insurance angle is that insurance companies would not be allowed to use any kind of actuarial tables to decide who paid what premium any more than they do now.

Is there any doubt that Latinos have more traffic accidents than the rest of us? That the morbidly obese have more health problems? That Negroes die earlier?

Yet an insurance company cannot “discriminate” by applying higher premiums to these higher risk groups. They would never allow that for immigrants, either. A healthy, productive White man entering America would pay the same premium as the obese octogenarian Hutu.

* There is a difference, the government of Singapore and a few others (mostly not western) actually do things that safeguard the security of the nation. Western governments however, seem hell bent to do everything that destroys the well being and security of their nations. Singapore may have it’s flaws, but they are far ahead of most western nations in this regard.

* The problem, as with so much else immigration-related, is enforcement. We already have a requirement that immigrants must have an affidavit of support from a sponsor here in the United States before they can immigrate. If they become a public charge, the sponsor must reimburse the costs. Despite millions of legal immigrants (illegally) on the public dole, the affidavit of support mechanism has been enforced a grand total of zero times. I fear a requirement they have insurance would be similarly ignored.

Where the insurance idea might have some promise is by enlisting the armies of insurance industry lobbyists in compelling enforcement. The same people who wrote Obamacare and successfully got every state to coerce us into becoming car insurance company customers could conceivably come up with a way to impose insurance on immigrants. The only bright side I see to that, however, is as a deterrent to coming in the first place.

* Sorry, Steve, but if –against all odds– this was ever even proposed in the legislature:

(1) The leftmedia and the dem party would scream bloody murder about how racist it is to make foreigners post bond for their good conduct. They will reply that white Americans should be made to post bond to insure minorities against the cost of white oppression.
(2) The rightmedia and the republicans would initially defend the measure, maybe even long enough to get it passed, but probably not.
(3) If it did pass, dems would use it as an excuse to expand the number of immigrants coming into the country legally. They are, after all, now -presumably– a growth industry.
(4) Immigrants would begin applying for these policies, and would promptly default as soon as they’d been here long enough to make deporting them a hassle.
(5) Defaulters will, of course, not be deported, regardless of whatever the law says.
(6) Insurance Companies might, however, actually try to pursue deadbeats for their errant premiums, until…
(7) The leftmedia and the dem party scream bloody murder about how conservative policies are turning poor, downtrodden migrants into a class of perpetual debt slaves.
(8) By this time, the rightmedia and the republican party will have folded, admitted it was all racist from the beginning, and promised to be extra nice to brown people, from now on, in penitence for their sins.

* How about we require the Feds to bond each immigrant and allow individuals and states the ability sue the Fed if they screw up? Each failure of the Fed will cost it one GS-13 or above. This way we shrink government and hold the Fed responsible for its Constitutional duty.

* I have said we are at the threshold where perhaps the only solution left now is physical action. Destroy the places which welcome, house and help migrants.

Small problem though: many of those places are churches, and too many people will be unable to cause harm to churches–quite despite the fact those churches are actively causing white genocide and destroying this country. What to do?

Almost every church in this country (with the notable exception of the Orthodox) participates in bringing in the Replacements. They get federal money to do it, along with their stupid bleeding-heart Churchian congregation’s money, and of course pay no taxes.
Apparently that is what deus vult.

* How about we just STOP all immigration? Too sensible? Too effective?

How about we shoot illegal aliens crossing the border? Too sensible? Too effective?

How about we fine and jail the employers of illegal aliens? Too sensible? Too effective?

Insurance? Are you NUTS? Turn the Federal responsibility over to tort courts?

Jesus H. Christ, Sailer. Pick your “great ideas” after a bit of critical thinking, eh?

* Immigration moratorium now and all immigration since 1964 to be considered illegitimate. Prompt deportation of all criminal aliens and alien subversives.

The insurance scheme proposed has also been floated as a way for the commie scum to work around the second amendment; just force people to buy insurance for all their weapons. The problem is that the insurance racket has become a particularly onerous form of tax-farming. They bribed or otherwise corrupted legislators to pass laws that force people to buy their worthless policies. This is corruption and criminal extortion under color of law. Insurance bagmen are equal to burglars in dignity and to be treated with utter contempt. These are thieves, muggers and criminal filth of the lowest order.

* You could shut down these sanctimonious waterheads from the Episcopal and Lutheran churches who bring Mexicans, and Somalis to the diversity deprived areas of our once great nation. I’ll bet those bastards would fall off the social justice bandwagon in a new York minute if they were held liable for what their poor little darlings did to honest hardworking Americans.

* I am of the mind that – barring all immigration of non-whites into white homelands – all bleeding hearts should be required to personally sponsor those “humble and downtrodden migrants” in their own home. If they believe such people are good enough for the nation as a whole, then they should be good enough to lodge them in the same dwelling as their own family, as a means of proving the honesty of their pose.

Let Juan and Pancho, the Sanchez brothers, or Mahlid and Coco, fresh from Somalia, have the guest bedroom across the hall from their white 16 year old cheerleader daughter. And if they’re not comfortable with that, then they are welcome to rethink their cheap grace.

This may be an effective cure for “good person-itis,” the malady of our time.

* The idea of immigration insurance is brilliant. If a risk exists and that risk can be assessed, why shouldn’t it be a financial product?
As for its being only applicable to legal immigrants, the risks created by illegal motorists are already factored into premiums overall.
In passing, I suspect that resistance might arise from the misunderstanding by otherwise intelligent Americans about the purpose of compulsory motor insurance.
It doesn’t exist to fix your car when you stack it; it exists to protect others from the consequences of your lousy driving.

* Immigration insurance is a brilliant idea, but only if government allows the insurance carriers to underwrite properly, so that higher-risk immigrants are charged more than lower-risk ones.

Automobile insurance, for example, costs more for a 17-year old adolescent male with a hot rod than it does for a 50-year old housewife with a minivan. This is (so far) regarded as an acceptable form of discrimination.

But will an analogous approach be acceptable in charging for immigration insurance? Will it be politically acceptable to charge a Pakistani or Saudi Arabian immigrant more than (say) one from Japan?

Bear in mind that part of the changes in medical insurance mandated under the Obamacare legislation was to impose “community rating,” which required health insurers to offer insurance at the same price to all persons in a given territory, without medical underwriting that took an individual applicant’s health status into account. Basically, it told the insurers that they could not discriminate on the basis of risk.

We see the same approach displayed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s crusade against dealer markups on auto loans, which reflect a risk-based approach to credit underwriting. This, too, is now considered an invidious form of discrimination.

Egalitarianism seems to win against realistic assessments of human differences in so many aspects of life that I would not care to bet it won’t in this one, too.

* An insurance policy on immigrants?

I think an upfront cash bond to be posted by their sponsor, a private citizen, not a corporate fiction of a citizen, would be the way to go.

Get the money up front.

The amount of the bond can be determined by age, sex, occupation, skills previous record if any in their old country, and likelihood of this newcomer costing the taxpayer any more burden than a natural-born citizen would.

Once the bond market is set up and monies go into escrow, THEN the insurance market will evolve to protect those assets.

* nder extant yet unenforced law, legal aliens (my status prior to 30 Sep. 2012) are ineligible for any and all benefits and grants excepts such awarded for educational purposes (e.g. Pell grant). Furthermore, before I was issued my Permanent Resident Visa, my uncle who is also my sponsor, executed an affidavit with the USG promising to pay for our expenses and needs. The law also mandates the submission of a bond ($5K, I think) by the sponsor (unenforced).

Essentially, the USG removes all obstacles to immigration and settlement that have been enacted by prior, more sensible, administrations. Therefore, legal provisions enacted to prevent immigrants from becoming public charges are routinely ignored.

In the absence of either a public grievance or powerful private difference, the USG has absolutely no reason to mend its wicked ways and the silly proposal described herein which is no way as strict as the extant law would also end up ignored and would eventually fade away.

* I have often thought a way to solve immigration problems would be to require all immigrants to be sponsored by an individual who would also be required to post a bond. In addition, the immigrant would be barred from any government aid or assistance, education costs, or free health care at hospitals or clinics for 20 years. If the immigrant committed any crime, the bond would compensate victims and the sponsor would be banned from sponsoring others.

If immigrants commit few problems, the bonds should be very low cost. This plan would make it difficult for employers to hire an immigrant at low wages and pass the true costs onto the community and expect the immigrant to obtain help from government programs.
Finally, we should allow only an amount of immigration equal to the loss of population through death and the emigration that occurs naturally thereby creating a stable population. Of course,all efforts need to be made to insure those coming have a history of assimilating in other cultures and countries or we will be creating ethnic strife with the immigrants children.. This would mean citizens who wanted to replace our culture and governance with Sharia would logically and prudently be banned.

* It was not exactly insurance and it would have fallen on US citizens wishing to sponsor the immigration off their parents rather than the immigrants themselves, but the Jordan Commission on US Immigration Reform proposed that those wishing to sponsor parents be required to sign a legally enforceable affidavit obligating them to support their parents financially for the rest of their lives during which they would be ineligible for public benefits.

In their final report to Congress they recommended:

Parents of U.S. citizens should be admitted as the second priority. This permits adult children to sponsor their parents, most of whom are past working age. However, the Commission is mindful of the potential negative impacts that the entry of parents may pose for the U.S. taxpayer if these individuals utilize Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid, and similar programs. Therefore, the Commission believes that continued admission of parents should be contingent on a legally enforceable affidavit of support. The affidavit should ensure that parents who are unable to work enough quarters to become eligible for Social Security or Medicare do not become a burden to taxpayers through use of SSI, Medicaid, or equivalent state and local services. Further, the Commission recommends that affidavit signers (petitioners and, if necessary, co=guarantors) should provide

Verifiable assurance that they indeed have the capacity to provide what may be a lifetime of financial support to the parent immigrants; and
Verifiable assurance of the purchase of what may be lifetime health coverage for the parent immigrants (obtained either privately or through buying into Medicare, which the government should make available at an actuarially fair price).

The Commission’s generally excellent suggestion were completely ignored by President Clinton and the report passed from view on the untimely death of the Commission’s chair, Barbara Jordan. Australia had such a program at one point and it would be worth taking a look at their experience.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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