Separation of church and state

Church leaders in Los Angeles are calling for illegal aliens to be included in the government health insurance plan, a position echoed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  A free dialysis clinic in Atlanta whose clients are overwhelmingly illegal aliens provides a glimpse of the potential costs, which the New York Times does not fully clarify.  The clinic has been trying unsuccessfully to close for years, unable to sustain its $2 million annual losses.  Atlanta has scores of commercial dialysis centers, but its illegal patients cannot afford them and they say that they could not get comparable care in their home countries.  Perhaps rather than asking American taxpayers to foot the bill for what would be a flood of new illegals coming to take advantage of their new entitlement, the Catholic Church could help defray the costs itself  (though its resources are admittedly already rather strained).