Summary (posts follow):
Desite what you've heard, the healthcare reform push from Barack Obama and the Democrats would include illegal aliens as discussed here. At townhall meetings, several people have asked whether illegal aliens would be covered and been told no. The problem is that they weren't asking the right questions; they should have asked whether there were any enforcement provisions (see the link above) or they should have asked this question.
Last modified Aug 25, 2009
The reason why Obama healthcare is currently poised to be signed into law is, to be frank, because the leaders of the opposition are either incompetent or corrupt. They either don't want to block it and hope to get in on the gravy train, or they just aren't smart enough to figure out how to block it. Those opposition leaders include the GOP, the tea parties, pundits, and major bloggers. They've...
The latest news on the Obama healthcare front is that the "death panels" part of the legislation - the part that doesn't exist even though it does exist - cannot be repealed per language inserted by Harry Reid (link). The subsection about the "Independent Medicare Advisory Board" says:
it shall not be in order in the senate or the house of representatives to consider any bill, resolution,...
... there being "death panels" in Obama healthcare as their lie of the year; it was the top "lie" selected by both their editors and their readers. In an ironic - and not unexpected note - Politifact is misleading. You can read Palin's quote at the link above, and note that my predication came true: if Palin's supporters were competent they could have used this issue against her detractors and...
From this:
Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants could receive health care coverage from their employers under the [House and Senate] bills winding their way through Congress, despite President Obama's explicit pledge that illegal immigrants would not benefit... The House bill mandates, and the Senate bill strongly encourages, businesses to extend health care coverage to all employees. But...
... to include illegal aliens in Obama healthcare which, if the NYT would actually think it through, is an unworkable solution. There are hundreds of millions of people around the world with serious medical conditions, and if only a small fraction were in effect lured here by lax healthcare policies whatever system was in place would quickly be swamped. Sack is also describing a situation that the...
Julia Preston of the New York Times has a roundup of the current state of Obamacare as it relates to coverage of legal immigrants and illegal aliens here. While near the beginning she does try to pretend that the Democrats wants to prevent illegal aliens from receiving benefits, she also includes quotes from those working to stiffen the identification requirements and correctly pointing out what...
... anyone to change their minds about Obama healthcare or related topics. And, isn't that what the protesters want? So, why are they engaging in activities that just waste time instead of pursuing things in a way that would lead them closer to their goals?
And, why aren't their leaders encouraging them to get civil and get effective? Glenn Reynolds quotes the bit about shouting (also below) and...
... repeatedly claimed that the various Obama healthcare plans wouldn't include illegal aliens. For the reasons outlined at the link, that's false. And, their false claims are further undercut by repeated attempts by the Democrats to render ineffective attempts at enforcement, like this latest where an amendment to the Max Baucus bill was blocked:
The bill... would require applicants to verify their...
Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times offers "Liberals seek health-care access for illegals":
Fearful that they're losing ground on immigration and health care, a group of House Democrats is pushing back and arguing that any health care bill should extend to all legal immigrants and allow illegal immigrants some access.
..."Legal permanent residents should be able to purchase their plans, and...
The short answer is "no". The reason why there's even a question is because it's part of the campaign by Obama supporters to smear Joe Wilson for his "You lie!" outburst during a recent Obama speech. While that campaign rages on even today, here's a recent flashback to Sep. 11. Donny Shaw [1] offered "Joe Wilson Voted to Provide Taxpayer Money for Illegal Immigrants' Healthcare" [2]:
... Sunday talk shows to promote Obama healthcare. One stop he won't be making is at Fox News; Chris Wallace isn't too happy about being snubbed [1] and neither are various GOP leaders [2].
Instead of reaching out to Fox's viewers and deflecting what would assuredly be lightweight questions, Obama will be appearing on Univision's "Al Punto with Jorge Ramos". Ramos is a Mexican citizen who has no...
... allowing illegal aliens into the Obama healthcare "exchange". Per ABC News (link), speaking in Spanish at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute function, he said:
... illegal aliens being covered under Obama healthcare (link). In this bit he lets you know that he's just a disingenuous hack whose opinions can't be trusted:
For the record, Wilson's premise is itself untrue: The framers of the various Democratic health-care bills did all they could to make sure their proposals wouldn't help illegal immigrants. Yes, a few might slip through the cracks and --...
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....
... negotiations over their version of Obama healthcare:
The controversy over Republican Rep. Joe Wilson's shouting out "You Lie!" at the President over his claim that illegal immigrants wouldn't benefit from health-care reform apparently sparked some reconsideration of the relevant language. "We really thought we'd resolved this question of people who are here illegally, but as we reflected on the...
... aliens wouldn't get benefits under Obama healthcare. It follows the stock Politfact template: admit that Obama's opponents might have a point, but then punt and side with Obama. See this for links to why they're misleading, and see also this:
PolitiFact ignores the central argument made by Wilson's camp: that the House bill does not require that the legal status of people who receive "...
David Herszenhorn of the New York Times offers "Check Point: Examining Obama’s Assertions" (link). He lists some of the things Obama was truthful and not truthful about in last night's speech; reviewing all of those for accuracy is left as an exercise. However, he leads off with three paragraphs (two below) in which he falsely claims that illegal aliens won't be able to get coverage. The...
Barack Obama will be giving a healthcare speech on September 9, 2009 and either we'll be covering it live, or you will by leaving comments. If you'll be watching the speech, please leave a comment pointing out the things he's lied or misled about or the things he doesn't mention. A transcript of the speech will be posted here as soon as it's available.
UPDATE: You can watch this online at...
... an impact on the "debate" over Obama healthcare, one would expect them to be crowing about it and one wouldn't expect to see things such as a Gallup poll showing the poll numbers of the plan mostly unchanged from the beginning of August to the end. One of the bellwethers when it comes to hackery is Ed Morrissey of HotAir, and he's not exactly crowing over any grand victories. One might expect a...
... Senator Al Franken discussing Obama healthcare with a group of his constituents at the Minnesota State Fair. At least one person is wearing a "Taxed Enough Already" t-shirt, and some or most are presumably from a tea parties group.
On the video, Franken shows just how incompetent the leaders of the tea parties are: he completely rolls over his opponents, giving what amounts to a lecture on the...
Josh Hoyt - director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights whose president is linked to the Mexican government - offers "Congressman Kirk's Immigrant Blind Spot May Cost Him Dearly" (huffingtonpost.com/joshua-hoyt/congressman-kirks-immigra_b_272713.html). He's very "concerned" (as in the type of troll) about Rep. Mark Kirk's stance on immigration-related matters....
Sharon Begley of Newsweek offers "The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate" (link), which contains a section discussing whether illegal aliens could receive healthcare under the House bill. Unlike FactCheck, she doesn't outright mislead and say they won't be able to get it, but she misleads nonetheless:
Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance.
The House bill doesn't give anyone...
FactCheck offers "Twenty-six Lies About H.R. 3200" (factcheck.org/2009/08/twenty-six-lies-about-hr-3200), a discussion of a chain email for which they say:
A notorious analysis of the House health care bill contains 48 claims. Twenty-six of them are false and the rest mostly misleading. Only four are true.
FactCheck recently misled about illegal aliens being covered under the House bill and for...
A couple weeks ago, representatives of the Obama administration held a conference call with dozens from the art world in which those officials encouraged the artists to push issues that are also being pushed by the Barack Obama administration, including healthcare reform and cap and trade. The details are in this long, disjoined report from someone who took part in the call. Those on the call...
The Congressional Research Service - part of the Library of Congress - now confirms that illegal aliens will be able to access healthcare benefits under the House healthcare reform bill (HR 3200). This contradicts claims made by Barack Obama, several members of Congress, Chuck Todd, FactCheck, and several other sources and shows yet again the basic untrustworthiness of those sources.
Excerpts...
... compiled a list of questions about Obama healthcare here. There are several dozen questions and they're encouraging their readers to go ask them at townhalls and the like.
Unfortunately, at post time, there's only one that's marked as answered: whether illegal aliens will be covered under the plan. LGF says they won't be covered, linking to the highly misleading claim from FactCheck.
LGF is...
... aliens won't be covered under Obama healthcare, pointing to Section 246 of H.R. 3200 which says:
Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.
For why that's highly misleading, see the links in the first item here. It all depends on your temporal reference point: those who are then-...
In yesterday's radio address, Barack Obama said [1]:
So today, I want to spend a few minutes debunking some of the more outrageous myths circulating on the internet, on cable TV, and repeated at some town halls across this country... Let's start with the false claim that illegal immigrants will get health insurance under reform. That’s not true. Illegal immigrants would not be covered. That idea...
On August 13, Jim Rutenberg and Jackie Calmes of the New York Times offered "False 'Death Panel' Rumor Has Some Familiar Roots" (link):
The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks... Advanced even this week by Republican...
Chuck Todd (and/or Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg) of MSNBC offer this:
One of the reasons why the public appears so wary about Obama’s health-care plans is due to all the misinformation out there. Majorities in [a new NBC News poll] believe the plans would give health insurance coverage to illegal immigrants (55%), would lead to a government takeover of the health system (54...
Obama administration official David Axelrod is due to receive $2 million starting next year from his former company, AKPD Message and Media (he was the sole shareholder and he sold his interest after Obama won). And, per this, AKPD is now receiving "huge fees" "from Healthy Economy Now, a coalition that includes the Washington-based Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, known as...
The video here from Obama's August 14 health care townhall in Montana shows a local welder taking around a minute to ask him a question. He first points out that he's a proud NRA member, then gives a shout-out to cable news (presumably Fox News), and then launches into an incredibly weak question. He basically wants to know how Obama is going to pay for all this stuff. That's certainly something...
Back on August 4, the White House blog briefly acted like a toned-down earthtones Stasi and said (whitehouse.gov/blog/facts-are-stubborn-things):
If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
Now, per this, emails sent to that address bounce back with a message suggesting that the sender visits whitehouse.gov/...
... "Becky". Becky is helping push Obama healthcare, even if she thinks she's doing the opposite. She's not alone: all those I've seen so far who think they're opposing Obamacare are in effect either helping promote it or aren't doing as good a job to oppose it as they could.
The video description is: "Cass County Campaign for Liberty member schools Senator Dorgan at his townhall meeting in...
... about illegal aliens receiving Obama healthcare. Unfortunately, if the report at [1] is accurate, the questions have been weak and may have actually helped the Democrats rather than revealed what they intend to do. As detailed by Obama himself, the Democrats do intend to give UHC to current illegal aliens by changing their status first. Someone could go from being an illegal alien one day to...
... familiar with the details of Obama healthcare so I don't know whether this post is right or not when it says that Sarah Palin wasn't wrong when she wrote the following:
The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of...
Earlier today, Barack Obama held a town hall about healthcare [1] and - leaving all other issues aside - he lied:
I don't have to explain to you that nearly 46 million Americans don't have health insurance coverage today. In the wealthiest nation on Earth, 46 million of our fellow citizens have no coverage.
As pointed out many times before, that number is off by around 9 million. According to the...
George Soros has contributed $5 million to the group Health Care For America Now (healthcareforamericanow.org) so that they can push Obamacare. That's dwarfed by the $35 million he's giving to help/"help" children in New York (in partnership with the federal government, [1]). As discussed here, HCAN is considered a bit on the wimpy side by the far-left, such as Jane Hamsher. That's despite HCAN...
... townhalls designed to promote Obama healthcare (link), and some have devolved into violence. That wasn't difficult to foresee and, while I have no proof, it might have been by design.
But, first of all, if I had my way those who oppose the Democrats health care proposals would have followed through on my two-and-a-half year old question authority plan. If they'd done that, instead of angry rants...
... involving an appearance to promote Obama healthcare by Arlen Specter and Kathleen Sebelius, and it might be even dumber because they lost an opportunity to put two nationally-known politicians on the spot (video link).
The first thirty seconds features someone going through the long intro to his question, then he spends ten seconds asking a generic question about politicians reading bills. When...