ObamaCare: Democratic healthcare reform

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

Discussed in (click each link for the full post):

Roundup of legal and illegal immigrant coverage by Obamacare - 11/04/2009

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 t...

Jim Geraghty, Glenn Reynolds promote anti-intellectualism (10/7/09 edition; Steve Israel townhall) - 10/07/2009

... 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...

Amendment to require photo ID for ObamaCare services defeated in Senate (Baucus bill) - 9/30/2009

... 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 ver...

Democrats: cover legal immigrants in Obamacare, give illegal aliens access (Honda, NCLR - 9/28/2009

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 t...

Did Joe Wilson vote to give healthcare to illegal aliens in 2003? (Donny Shaw, Sunlight) - 9/19/2009

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 Im...

Obama snubs Fox to discuss domestic policy with foreign citizen (Jorge Ramos, Univision) - 9/19/2009

... 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 M...

Rep. Luis Gutierrez wants illegal aliens in healthcare exchange; emulate Blue Dogs for amnesty - 9/15/2009

... allowing illegal aliens into the Obama healthcare "exchange". Per ABC News (link), speaking in Spanish at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute function, he said:

E.J. Dionne sells Obamacare for illegal aliens - 9/15/2009

... 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...

FactCheck furiously spins healthcare coverage for illegal aliens; Obama still right! - 9/11/2009

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 ...

Senate tightening rules on illegal aliens in healthcare reform? (after Joe Wilson's "You lie!") - 9/11/2009

... 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...

Angie Drobnic Holan of Politifact misleads about healthcare reform bill covering illegal aliens - 9/10/2009

... 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 NYT misleads about ObamaCare - 9/10/2009

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 c...

Obama health care speech: September 9, 2009 - 9/09/2009

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 watc...

The tea parties, angry townhall ranters didn't have much impact on Obamacare "debate" - 9/08/2009

... 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 ...

Al Franken shows incompetence of Tea Party leaders, how they help Obama - 9/05/2009

... 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...

Joshua Hoyt of ICIRR misleads about healthcare for illegal aliens (Mark Kirk) - 8/31/2009

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 immigra...

Sharon Begley of Newsweek dissembles about healthcare for illegal aliens - 8/31/2009

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 do...

Blogger: FactCheck misattributed chain email to me ("Twenty-six Lies About H.R. 3200") - 8/30/2009

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 ...

Obama administration wants artists to push their agenda (NEA, serve.gov) - 8/26/2009

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 stre...

Illegal aliens can get healthcare benefits under House bill: Congressional Research Service (HR 3200) - 8/26/2009

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 from...

Little Green Footballs has ObamaCare questions - 8/25/2009

... 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 Fac...

Brooks Jackson of FactCheck misleads about illegal aliens and ObamaCare - 8/25/2009

... 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 t...

Obama lies about illegal aliens covered under Obamacare; abortions, "death panels" - 8/23/2009

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...

New York Times now admits: "A Basis Is Seen for Some Health Plan Fears Among the Elderly" - 8/22/2009

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 w...

Chuck Todd misleads about Obamacare (illegal alien coverage, abortions, Calvin Woodward) - 8/19/2009

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%...

David Axelrod conflict-of-interest? Getting $2 million from former company that's now pushing Obamacare (PhRMA) - 8/19/2009

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...

NRA member "Randy the Welder" unwittingly helps Obama at Montana townhall - 8/18/2009

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 certai...

Obama administration no longer publicly seeking citizen informants; their plan tracked my satire - 8/17/2009

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/reality...

"Becky": poster girl for unwitting supporters of Obamacare (townhall ranter) - 8/15/2009

... "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 Dor...

Ask better questions about illegal aliens receiving healthcare at townhalls - 8/14/2009

... 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 bein...

Even if Palin is right about "death panels", will her supporters be able to do anything about it? - 8/13/2009

... 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 o...

Obama keeps lying about number of uninsured "Americans" - 8/11/2009

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. Accordi...

George Soros gives $5 million to push Obamacare (HCAN, NCLR, ACORN, SEIU, etc...) - 8/11/2009

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. Th...

Weren't violent confrontations at healthcare townhalls part of the plan? - 8/08/2009

... 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 an...

Arlen Specter, Kathleen Sebelius meet tea party/GOP braintrust, massive intellectualism ensues - 8/04/2009

... 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 S...

Obama reiterates magical, dishonest plan: illegal aliens won't get healthcare because illegal aliens will be legalized first - 7/30/2009

As previously discussed, Barack Obama has a magical, deceptive plan to avoid giving healthcare to illegal aliens: give them legal status first. Someone could cross the border illegally one day, obtain easily faked documentation showing they'd been living in the U.S. for years the next, and then get on the path to citizenship - and eligible to receive Obama's largess - the day after that....

Obama says healthcare plan won't cover illegal aliens (word games; possible exception for children) - 7/22/2009

Katie Couric of CBS News asked Barack Obama whether his healthcare plan would include illegal aliens to which he replied "no" (link). He did allow for an exception: "First of all, I'd like to create a situation where we're dealing with illegal immigration, so that we don't have illegal immigrants... And we've got legal residents or citizens who are eligible for t...

ObamaCare will include illegal aliens, unless you do something (Dems block Heller amendment) - 7/20/2009

From this: On Friday, Democrats moved one step closer to giving free health insurance to the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens when they successfully defeated a Republican-backed amendment, offered by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack...

My question for the Youtube/Barack Obama July 1, 2009 healthcare townhall - 6/30/2009

As previously discussed, Youtube is soliciting questions to be asked of Barack Obama at his healthcare townhall on July 1, 2009. Since I'm not a healthcare expert and since, unlike many others, I know my limitations, I decided to go meta instead. I was able to successfully add the following video to the list of replies here. (Note: I took a screengrab in case it goes missing like others did f...

Youtube helps Obama find useful idiot questioners for his healthcare town hall - 6/29/2009

Steve Grove of Youtube writes (youtube.com/blog?entry=20h2yiH79Tc): President Obama is taking your questions this Wednesday in a special online health care town hall event. With health care at the top of the President's agenda, he is opening up the White House to questions via YouTube... He'll answer some of the most popular questions during the event, which we'll stream live from t...

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