FactCheck furiously spins healthcare coverage for illegal aliens; Obama still right!

FactCheck offers "Obama’s Health Care Speech/We fact-check the president's address to Congress and the nation" (factcheck.org/2009/09/obamas-health-care-speech) which to a certain extent contradicts claims made by their own director Brooks Jackson back on August 14. At that time, he said it was "False" that "Illegal Immigrants Will Be Covered" under the House bill; his claim itself is false.

With the new article they're at least admitting that those who point out that illegal aliens would be covered "have a point", but they furiously spin things - surprise! - to Obama's benefit:

[In his speech] Obama was correct when he said his plan wouldn’t insure illegal immigrants; the House bill expressly forbids giving subsidies to those who are in the country illegally. Conservative critics complain that the bill lacks an enforcement mechanism, but that hardly makes the president a liar.

They're giving Obama too much credit. Way, way, way too much credit. He knows there are loopholes and he supports such loopholes. The only reason he isn't pushing to cover the entire population of Mexico is because he knows he couldn't get away with it. Obama is being deliberately deceptive; he's a liar.

They follow the quote above with a longer section; the first part of that reprises their previous false claim. Then:

However, conservative critics object to a lack of specific enforcement measures in the bill. They argue that the lack of a specific verification mechanism constitutes a loophole that would allow illegal immigrants to get benefits despite the legal prohibition. Republican Rep. Dean Heller of Nevada proposed an amendment to the bill that would have required the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program to check the citizenship of anyone applying for federal coverage or affordability credits. SAVE is the program used by Medicaid and similar entitlement programs. That amendment was voted down along party lines by the House Ways and Means Committee.

Republicans have a point here: More could be done to enforce the ban. But it’s worth remembering that, as a spokesperson for the American Immigration Lawyers Association told us, attempting to get a health care credit would have legal repercussions. "Making a fraudulent claim to an entitlement program when you’re not actually entitled to it would have serious consequences for any person," the spokesperson told us, "but especially if it’s considered a false claim to citizenship, that would have serious immigration consequences that could ultimately lead to deportation." And Rep. Wilson certainly was out of bounds to call the president’s statement a "lie." He later issued a statement apologizing for his "inappropriate and regrettable" comments.

It was at the mention of the AILA that I broke out laughing. While to a certain extent most illegal aliens will try to lie low, the idea that most illegal aliens would be afraid of falsely claiming to be a citizen is absurd. They crossed the border illegally or overstayed their visa; they may be using falsified documents; they know that the chance of being deported are remote due to racial power groups and corrupt politicians. They aren't about to be deterred by a checkbox on a form.

And, of course, FactCheck is trying to imply that Joe Wilson retracted his claim that Obama was lying, when in fact Wilson maintains that Obama was lying.

In addition to Jackson, those responsible are: Jess Henig, DAngelo Gore and Lori Robertson.

Fri, 09/11/2009 - 13:58 · · Importance: 4