My wife and I will not be voting in 2020. The decision of 10 Democratic presidential candidates to support extending subsidized medical care to undocumented immigrants did it for us. When the polls start showing that we aren’t the only ones, their scrambling will be futile.

Biweekly, I sigh as $400 gets taken from my paycheck to pay for unsubsidized health insurance – and our plan is nothing to write home about.

The argument is that the humane thing to do is to provide charity medical care to the sick no matter their legal status. Doing so, they say, translates into future savings.

A similar argument is that because undocumented immigrants live and work here, they should get charity care.

The argument is that preventive care will keep the cost of a visit to the ER down. Well, the elderly citizens of this country have lived here and worked here their entire lives. Single mothers who are legal citizens of this country live and work here. I work and I live here. And I have medical bills that choke my ability to go to the corner store to buy a lollipop.

I pay my medical bills through a payment plan offered by the hospital. So, if undocumented immigrants are living and working here, they can pay for their medical costs– just like many of us do – by enrolling in a payment plan.

Why don’t we reduce the high cost of a visit to the ER to begin with? Of prescription medication?

The American elderly, the American single mothers, the American homeless, the middle-class Americans who break their backs so that their next paycheck pays the rent … we all deserve medical care that we can afford. Undocumented immigrants should join the club.

Jose Linares

Yarmouth

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