Would Obama Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants Mean Free Healthcare?
By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Of all the hot-button issues surrounding President Obama and the Democrats' effort to change healthcare, the idea of including illegal immigrants in the coverage may be the hottest.
It's an issue that moves voters, including independents, and not, as some of the president's supporters have taken to suggesting, because of some sort of inherent or even overt racism. Americans object to illegal immigrants receiving services from the government because, in their taxpaying minds, people who are here illegally are getting a free ride that everyone else has to work harder and pay more in taxes to provide.
In his speech to a joint session of Congress, Obama denied that the plan he envisioned—but conveniently has yet to set to paper—would not allow illegal immigrants to participate, meaning the American people wouldn't have to pay for their healthcare. Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina called the president out on it—and was admonished for doing so by the House, generally along party lines. To the television networks that have covered the story, this makes Obama the hero and Wilson the goat.
Not so fast.
It may be that Obama's eventual plan for healthcare reform won't pay the medical expenses of immigrants here in the United States illegally—but that's because he may also have a not-so-secret plan to make them all citizens.
As Stephen Dinan writes in Friday's Washington Times, the president is saying the healthcare crisis among illegal immigrants is so severe that it constitutes a compelling reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually can have access to healthcare. "Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Obama told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute in a speech on Wednesday. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else."
"If anything," Obama said of the need to reform healthcare in America, "this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all."
So it turns out that Obama's explanation to Congress and the country about illegal immigrants and healthcare reform isn't quite the same as what he tells his friends when he thinks America isn't watching. As a matter of parsing words and splitting hairs, the distinctions are positively Clintonian in their brilliance. As a matter of public policy they are almost certain to inflame an electorate that is already highly skeptical of his effort to change American healthcare.
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Tags: healthcare | immigration
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Reader Comments
It's all political.
Legal citizens of our country from every race,and cultural back ground have already been confronted with the most blatant, overt lawlessness from both Democrats and Republicans Bush/Cheyney invading an entire country based on a lie, the banks mired in corruption and being rewarded for it. It is been made clear that criminal behavior in this country is rewarded, can it really be surprising that these same criminals would look at the illegal aliens demanding rights, and citizenship with a familiar smile and nod, the rich benefit from importing poverty (illegal aliens) and the illegal immigrants benefit from a better life in this country all at the cost of the law abiding middle class, and working class American. Eventually this country will have only extremely rich, and extremely poor just like the 3rd world countries these illegals fled from ,and where will we go?.
Open letter to Obama
Dear President Obama;
What has happened to your personal values?
By allowing a Health Care package to pass that includes a cut to the Social Security Benefits and Medicare to the ones that depends on it for survival and medical care, you have betrayed the very back bone of America.
By allowing it to pass with a Mandate to force everyone to buy coverage from the greedy insurance companies you are giving in to a "dictatorship" controlled by them.
You are clearly willing to penalize the very people who are struggling to "JUST" survive, to enrich the powerful insurance and drug companies
By allowing it to pass without either a single payer or public option you will prove to the people of America that you did not tell us the truth.
As time passes I am seeing you as a very weak person, a person that will compromise your values for the approval of the Corporations and Conservatives.
I and millions of voters voted for you because we thought you would stand up for what you said in your speeches during your campaign, we voted for a change in Government policies, "Not a changed Barack Obama"
Not only are you compromising the elderly, disabled, poor and minimum wage earners of America, you are compromising the Democratic Party, I do not want to believe that you are aware of the number of people you are hurting by your Conservative decisions.
Please Mr. President !
Either keep your word to those that voted for what they believed you would stand for, or step aside, we had eight years of broken promised and deceit and we can't allow another Presidential term to proceed that is following the same path of destruction.
Martha Leftwich
P.O. Box 841
Weaver, Alabama 36277
Health Care For Illegals
The answer is simple.
BILL THEIR GOVERNMENT FOR THEIR CARE.
I dont pay for your family's bills & you dont pay for mine.
What the hell is the matter with our government that they cant figure this out.
Our politicians are nothing but a bunch of touchy feely jackasses with NO DAMN COMMON SENSE FOR THE COUNTRY, but only care for their own political hides. If that means importing some illegal votes, then that's ok. Soon, if not already, we will be living in a country with no principals at all, where you will be told how to feel about having your home invaded or having to ignore some person of the same sex who wants to have sex with you, ALL IN THE NAME OF HUMAN RIGHTS & DIVERSITY. We've already high-lighted some crimes as "hate" crimes. A CRIME IS A CRIME FOR GOD'S SAKE. YOU DON'T NEED TO EMPHASIZE THAT IT'S A "HATE" CRIME, UNLESS YOU PLAN ON LEGISLATING HUMAN THOUGHT & EMOTION.
Quite frankly, I wouldn't give you a dime for the country when it gets to that point. Who wants to fight for a country that sanctions cheats sneaking into your own home? Unpatriotic, you say? Since when is it patriotic to fight for a bunch of thieves that steal your home & then tell you how you feel & how you should feel? I don't recall our forefathers fighting for that.
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