PrintAugust 22, 2009
Obama's misleading statements on health care for illegals
This is part and parcel of the White House strategy on selling health care reform; ask people to put blinders on so that the intended/unintended effects of his health care reform proposals are ignored.
Case in point; everyone with an ounce of intelligence can see that Obama's proposals for reform will include health care for illegal aliens - even though it is not specifically written into any proposed bill. It will simply be the consequence of a government takeover of health care.
Here's Obama yesterday on the Michael Smerconish radio show:
"This has been an example of just pure misinformation out there. None of the bills that have been voted on in Congress, and none of the proposals coming out of the White House propose giving coverage to illegal immigrants - none of them. That has never been on the table; nobody has discussed it. So everybody who is listening out there, when you start hearing that somehow this is all designed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants, that is simply not true and has never been the case."
Mark Kirkorian of NRO :
Well, that's not quite a lie because our silver-tongued attorney-in-chief is right that the bills are not "designed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants," but they will do so nonetheless. As Jim Edwards and Jon Feere demonstrate in some detail, the supposed bar on illegal aliens getting subsidies is inadequate: The bar applies only to one section of the bill; there's no requirement that applicants' eligibility be verified, as is the case with other welfare programs; and the Democrats specifically rejected amendments to require verification.
In the narrowest technical sense, the president is sort of telling the truth. But like denying that the public option will eventually result in the destruction of the private health insurance industry, Obama refuses to acknowledge the legitimate "slippery slope" arguments of his opponents.
The bottom line, is that the proposed health care reform will not exist in a vacuum. Language in the bill will be interpreted by bureaucrats who will then promulgate rules that could easily result in illegals having their health care paid for by tax payers.
Not acknowledging this is disingenuous at best. Either that, or our Harvard educated president is a dunce who lacks critical thinking skills and has an inability to extrapolate based on the facts.
Or maybe he's just a bald faced liar.
Hat Tip: Ed Lasky
