Comment by someperson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by someperson | Hacker News Reader

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> you can be pretty sure your retired parents won't, if ever you need them to move in with you

The immigration system should be designed to block retired parents from moving country to live with their working age adult children who have migrated.

One reason to have immigration is to improve a country's dependency ratio: the ratio of working age population to children and retirees.

The ideal immigrants are young well-educated parents that can stay in the workforce for 40+ years with healthy children that are just about to enter the school system.

That way the receiving country didn't need to invest in educating the parents originally, don't need to pay the healthcare costs of very young infants, and it provides the best possible addition to the the receiving country's demographic structure so the host country benefits from a whole working life of tax payments and all the value created by their work output.

The economic case for even skilled immigration is far less compelling for a receiving nation without such restrictions on immigrating retirees.

Your ideal immigrants are young parents with healthy children, who are apparently willing to abandon their own parents? And somehow this is a good thing?

Abandon is the wrong word.

Should the country receiving the immigrants let elderly grandparents be cared for by their own country's pension and aged-care and healthcare industry, instead of burdening the receiving countries?

Absolutely unequivocally yes.

The grandparents can always come visit on tourist visas and the immigrants can visit their original country too.

What if, as a condition of the visa [0], the sponsoring high-performing immigrant guarantees that the relative won’t become a public charge, and becomes legally bound to reimburse the public purse if that happens?

I seem to recall the notion that elderly people are normally isolated, atomized wards of the “aged-care industry” as a relatively recent innovation, no? Versus people seeking to bring elderly relatives to reproduce the sort of multigenerational households that more traditionally handled aging care, and that do that today in other parts of the world?

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_charge_rule

The final years of healthcare for the elderly is unaffordabily expensive.

Nations are able to afford it with a healthy dependency ratio, but with the Baby Boom generation leaving the workforce, it will no longer be possible.

A young family who have recently migrated are saving for a house and college, to make them pay for a decade of end-to-life treatment (cancer treatment, dialysis) at United States price ranges is unaffordable even for very high income earners.

Remember the two parents have four grandparents, and two children (the receiving country would love for them to have a third).

That said, I am open to a special visa with a million dollar escrowed deposit per elderly parent to cover their healthcare. Without extreme restrictions they are bound to become a healthcare burden on the system.

Don’t the elderly people in question—where they or their sponsors can’t cover the cost—1) have their visa applications denied on public charge grounds, or 2) not receive those treatments?

I was of the impression that, in the US at least, such immigrants might be allowed to purchase Medicare if they’d been here for a long time and worked/paid payroll taxes for many years—but that they certainly wouldn’t qualify to get it for free in the way native-born people do. Native-born people with 10 years of formal employment, anyway.

Not sure how that works with Medicaid—it sounds like [1] some states have chosen to implement that in ways immigrants can access if they come in on green cards and spend their working lives in the US, paying in to the system—but that seems to me more like a local policy choice than a primary feature of the immigration system.

For that matter, in your formulation, should the working-age immigrants themselves, who permanently resettle and work their whole life in the US, be denied access to old-age benefits when the time comes?

[0] https://www.kff.org/faqs/medicare-open-enrollment-faqs/enrol...

[1] [PDF] https://www.health.ny.gov/health_care/medicaid/publications/...

Those rules are not enforced, every state has free (or almost free) healthcare that fresh immigrants are eligible for but sometimes they need to jump thru a few hoops. Many states have free “healthcare navigators” that will guide you how to jump thru those hoops.

> have their visa applications denied on public charge grounds

Oh, I wasn't familiar with the 'public charge' requirement of the US immigration system. That's excellent in principle, and wonderful if enforced adequately.

> Not sure how that works with Medicaid—it sounds like [1] some states have chosen to implement that in ways immigrants can access if they come in on green cards and spend their working lives in the US, paying in to the system—but that seems to me more like a local policy choice than a primary feature of the immigration system.

Yes, agree that's not a feature of the immigration itself but a local policy choice. Some states are very lax with Medicaid qualification rules eg, California recently expanding coverage to illegal immigrants with loosened criteria that legal immigrants won't qualify. I recall changes were made in response to federal tightening of rules. It's still a bad policy, but a local one.

> For that matter, in your formulation, should the working-age immigrants themselves, who permanently resettle and work their whole life in the US, be denied access to old-age benefits when the time comes?

No, one principle is they have paid into the system for a long period of time then they should of course be able to access benefits.

The other principle is by that time they are ready to retire they will certainly permanent residents but hopefully citizens, so not seen differently than other citizens.

Can you explain why "move to another country with your family, leaving your elderly parents to fend for themselves" is not abandoning ones parents? Most of the world doesn't believe that old people having a roof over their heads and access to healthcare is all it takes for them to not be considered abandoned.

Even moreso with arbitrary rule changes with zero deadlines meaning they can't even necessarily fly back in emergencies without risking losing their status in the US?

Generally speaking, those parents wouldn’t have the work history to qualify for SS benefits in the US. AND IIRC, they’d need some form of permanent residency to qualify for Medicare/Medicaid.

And the sponsoring immigrant would be responsible for the bill.

Technically yes but practically no. I did research - there were a few court cases in 60ies but after that gov gave up on trying to recover money.

Many Medicaid rules around minimum residency and work history are being (insanely) relaxed/removed. At least in California.

Based on my reading of the law, you can overstay a tourist visa and receive Medicaid coverage in California relatively quickly.

(But that's a different discussion)

Abandon seems to be the right word considering the context you have added.

Amusing that people like you get downvoted into oblivion and still think their opinions are unequivocal.

Hey, quick question: who founded America?

Initially? People looking for gold, silver, fur. Missionaries spreading the word of god, people escaping persecution of various sorts.

Are those the people Europe and the US are look to immigrate?

> Initially? People looking for gold, silver, fur.

For the most part it was companies looking for gold, furs etc, with the support of their governments. Companies founded the colonies and trading posts for the benefit of the stockholders and the governments. The consideration of colonists was a distant third. When the supply of easy marks dried up they turned to indentured labour and then slavery.

Did they bring their parents with them?

Can't pick and choose. Would you be ok with people escaping persecution or spreading their religion coming in the country if they don't bring their parents?

What point do you think you’re responding to exactly?

GP mentioned “abandoning your parents” when you immigrate as if that’s absurd. In reality it’s the most normal thing imaginable.

I know hundreds of people who live outside their home country and I can’t thing of a single one of them who took their parents with them. When does that ever happen?

> Hey, quick question: who founded America?

That's what I'm responding to. That the first immigrants to America came under very different circumstances. Circumstances that wouldn't get them into America today.

Abandoning your parents isn't absurd when you don't have other good options. It's also not the most normal thing imaginable. Would you abandon your parents and go to another country if they can't join you at all?

We want the "best and brightest" but we also want them to have to abandon their parents to do it? Many of the best and brightest have other options.

100% Right!

My wife "abandoned" her entire family to come to America at 18, didn't speak a word of english, had a suitcase and barely enough money to survive a week.

She doesn't regret it and her family doesn't think they were abandoned.

This "abandoned" idea is great example of a poor idea that goes into policy that doesn't match reality.

Was she a high skilled immigrant going to America to do a job with a talent shortage? Because that's the class of immigrants we're talking about here.

Having non-working grand parents that can help with watching kids is a nice way to ensure you actually get more kids in the first place. No sane parents will make lots of babies if there is no one who can help them with babysitting. And no, just kindergarten is not sufficient.

The true measure of a country isn’t a number like GDP, per capita income/wealth, or tax revenues. It’s how good of a place it is for everyone to live. If we have to keep family members out because medical costs are out of control, we’ve failed. So the question isn’t how to exclude people, it’s how to efficiently provide good healthcare and other basic needs for all. It’s not easy, but it’s what matters.

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