Can someone please explain this law for hiring Aliens?

I would say that any hospital costs for the “alien” and for those who contracted diseases from this “alien” must be paid by the employer of the “alien”.

What do they mean not present? Why would they not be present? lol

They mean they are not allowed to be there.

They’re talking about illegal immigrants.

Basically, if you employ an illegal immigrant, and they get an infectious disease, you have to pay for it. What doesn’t make sense to me is what if the immigrant broke their arm and went to the hospital? Does the state pay for it then? The whole “infectious disease” is baffling to me too. What if they develop diabetes and have to go to the hospital for diabetic ketoacidosis?

It’s an unnecessarily complicated way of saying “Don’t hire illegal immigrants”.

@chelle21689 “aliens who are not legally present” means “illegal aliens.”

Actually, the title of the statute is:
3707.15 Employer of illegal alien with contagious or infectious disease to pay expense caused by disease.

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3707

Technically, there is no such thing as an “illegal alien.” That’s a pejorative term used by people with prejudices against immigrants. It’s shorthand to refer to someone who did not present proper papers when entering the country or who presented proper papers, but overstayed their visa and thus no longer have the proper documents sanctioning their presence in this country.

You can see why people call them “illegals.” The proper term is undocumented alien or undocumented immigrant, depending on why they are here. Alien means they are not citizens, I think.

Anyway, the Ohio law is a result of prejudice about undocumented aliens. People blame them for all kinds of things. People also blame those who employ them.

One unfair charge on undocumented immigrants is that they get free health care and pay no taxes. The data do not support this charge. Undocumented immigrants pay far more in taxes and fees than they receive in benefits.

They are not entitled to Medicaid, which does pay for the care of the poor. So they may work, and they pay taxes on their earnings, but they are not entitled to Medicaid, and usually they work in jobs that don’t have other forms of health insurance. So if they get sick, they have to pay out of pocket. Often they can’t afford to.

But consider a situation where they are sick with an infectious disease. They go to the hospital and they can’t afford to pay for their care. Who can we get to pay? Perhaps those employers who were so chintzy, they refused to provide health insurance for their employees.

Why only if the employees have infectious diseases? I don’t know. Why not make those employers provide health insurance for all the health needs of their undocumented employees?

It’s an insane little law on the face of it. You’d have to ask the authors what they were really thinking about. There are certainly no reasonable policy grounds I can think of for the law, and I spent years in the field of health policy.

@wundayatta Infectious disease because it endagers the population, our citizens, at large. Although, it is so vague, it could mean a common cold. I would guess the spirit of the law was more likely to treat more serious disease, maybe hospitalization, when the person is not in a condition to travel.

If the employer did not illegally employ the person without papers, maybe they would go back home? Maybe that was the logic behind it? I think we probably can somewhat blame Latin American and Asian immigration for increases in cases of TB and Hep A in our country. Although, as the world gets smaller and smaller, and people travel everywhere, that would be harder to pin down now.

In the end I think laws like this are to discourage employers from hiring illegal immigrants.

@Rarebear No, that is not what they are saying. They are saying that if you employ an illegal alien and they already have or contract an infectious disease while working for you, then you are liable to pay the illegal alien’s doctor bills, and the doctor bills for any other employees that catch something from him/her. In other words, you brought him here by giving him a job, you exposed your other employees to someone who shouldn’t be here, so if any of the above get sick, the government isn’t going to pay for the doctor bills – YOU are!

Part of the reason is, if that person immigrated here legally, he or she would have been checked for any infectious diseases as part of the routine paperwork. Since they skipped that paperwork and put the local population at risk by doing so, and you as an employer condoned that, then you are liable.

Oh, and also if they had come to this country through the proper channels, they would have received vaccinations to protect them from catching something here. And that is why you as an employer of an illegal immigrant are also taking on the responsibility of his/her health if he/she contracts something after they get here.

We aren’t talking about cancer or broken arms. We are talking about infectious diseases. Next time you order a burger from a kitchen full of illegal immigrants, just think “typhoid Mary.”

Just to give you an idea look at Hep A infection in the world on the map on this link and indeed my husband, who is Mexican, and all his siblings had Hep A as a children. I once told his sister during a discussion about hepititas that I don’t know anyone else personally who has had Hep A who is American, and she was suprised. They talked about it like it was chicken pox, but to an American we are kind of freaked a little when people get Hep A. I realize it can be a very mild case, and some of us might have had it and did not even know, but it is also very likely we never had it.

@chelle21689, That’s exactly what I thought you meant when I first saw your question! I wondered what “law” you meant. I forget who posed the question about reading a question too quickly, but I think I just did- I should have read the whole question first.