When uninsured immigrants are hurt, who pays?- Alan Bavley. The Kansas City Star, March 24, 2005, is as rich a serving of facts on America's illegal immigration/health care disaster as I have seen in a long time:

• A specific financial atrocity – in this case, a badly injured uninsured illegal of 2 years standing who has already cost North Kansas City Hospital $250,000

• Further damning details:  "In Dodge City, 30 percent to 40 percent of patients arriving at the emergency room of the Western Plains Medical Complex are undocumented immigrants, said Brian Roland, the hospital's business office director. 'Most of them are uninsured,' he said. 'We do have some folks who do what they can to pay, but a large majority does not.'"

• An irresponsible legal system preventing the hospital's frantic attempt to ship their deadbeat patient back to Guatemala (featuring his pro-bono lawyer Chuck Chionuma [e-mail him], an immigrant from Nigeria.)

• An arrogant Hispanic activist: "Christina Vasquez Case, [email her] director of Alianzas, a University of Missouri-Kansas City initiative that works with the Hispanic community, said she understood how unpaid medical bills could frustrate communities, but said the American labor market had a role in creating the situation."

• A pro-immigrant bureaucrat demonstrating one again the need to fix the 14^th Amendment problem: " 'Several of the patients are young adults with families — young children they're responsible for who are U.S. citizens. How do you say no to them?' "- Suzanne Meyer, director of social work, Truman Medical Center.

Not for the first time, political correctness does not yet seem to have paralyzed America's local media.