The Unablogger
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) was rude, boorish and disrespectful when he blurting out “You lie!” during President Obama’s nationally televised address Wednesday night, but the substance of his remark was absolutely correct.
The mainstream media buy the Democrats’ superficial argument – that the language of the bill specifically excludes illegals. The problem is that the bill excludes the normal enforcement mechanism. It effectively says, “No benefits for illegals – wink, wink.”
That is like saying there are no “death squads” in the bill just because the bill doesn’t use those precise words to describe the administrative decision panels that are in the bill.
Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV) had offered an amendment that would have required that individuals applying for the public health care option would be subject to two systems used to verify immigration status already in use by the government: the Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program. The two systems cross-reference Social Security numbers and employment information to establish whether an individual is a U.S. citizen. But the House Ways and Means Committee voted down the amendment on a 26-to-15 straight party-line vote.
RedState.com notes that H.R. 3200, while claiming to block illegal aliens from the plan, actually provides incentives to ignore citizenship. State Medicaid agencies are given the ability to set eligibility standards for the low income subsidies that will be used for the plan. But they have no incentive not to enroll illegal aliens, particularly since it’s a 100% federal match. So doctors are not required to verify citizenship because they and the states will get greater allotments the faster the rolls grow.
Newsmax noted one irony of the proposed legislation. It would fine American citizens who opt not to purchase insurance coverage, but illegals are not subject to that penalty, because they are not supposed to participate in the program.
Democrats, including the President himself, belie their professed denial of the bill’s coverage of illegals by the numbers that they use in support of the supposed need for the legislation. They claim that 47 million U.S. residents are uninsured. But the only way there are that many uninsured is by including nearly 10 million uninsured illegal immigrants. Note, 10 million is no mere rounding error or statistical noise; it represents 21% of all uninsured residents of the United States. Illegals had to have been consciously included in order to have come up with that number. Thus, the Democrats’ own numbers demonstrate conclusively that they fully intend for illegals to be covered.
So, are the Democrats lying about the number of uninsured, or are they lying about whether the legislation will provide subsidized health care to illegals? I think they are sincere about wanting to extend insurance to everyone, including illegals, but they are disingenuous about admitting it.
The Unablogger 