Wilson Wins! Dems Close Illegal Alien Loophole in Health Care Bill - Updated

The apologies are out of the way and the offense forgiven. But the underlying policy argument remains, after a Congressman drew fire from both sides of the aisle for his outburst during President Obama's speech Wednesday. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., was criticized for interrupting Obama's address to a joint session of Congress to accuse the president of lying about his health care reform plan prohibiting coverage for illegal immigrants. Wilson quickly apologized, and the White House accepted the apology.

Wilson apologized again Thursday morning, though he also says a massive loophole could wind up in the health care bill: no requirement to prove citizenship for health care coverage.

Among three House committees to pass bills for health reform, only one expressly bans federal funding for proving health coverage to illegal immigrants.

"The Congressional Research Service has indicated that indeed the bills that are before Congress would include illegal aliens," Wilson said. "And I think this is wrong."

Indeed, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service study found that the House health care bill does not restrict illegal immigrants from receiving health care coverage.

House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner amplified the complaint that without proof of citizenship, illegal immigrants could be insured.

"There were two opportunities for House Democrats to make clear that illegal immigrants wouldn't be covered by putting in requirements to show citizenships," he said. "Both of those amendments were, in fact, rejected."

In the Senate, Democrats in the so called "Gang of Six," a group of bipartisan senators on the Senate Finance Committee which is the last panel yet to release its bill, began moving quickly to close the loophole that Wilson helped bring greater attention to.

"We absolutely assure that those who are here illegally would not get the benefit of any of these initiatives," Sen. Kent Conrad said.

House Democrats have left open the option to sanction Wilson for violating a House rule that expressly prohibits members from accusing presidents of lying. But they signaled a preference to move ahead without further distraction.

"Let's not spend time on that," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. "Yes, there is a procedure that could have been implemented. I think that the president did the right thing: just continued on from it and didn't give it any more attention than it deserved."

FOX News' Carl Cameron contributed to this report.

As far as Rep Joe Wilson’s outburst… good for him that he apologized; certainly more than Harry Reid did when he called President Bush a liar or Speaker Pelosi did when she called the CIA liars. However Ann Coulter shared that the rule of no shouting out or even calling the President a liar (when he was) goes back to a time when nobody interrupted the Presidents’ speeches with cheering, boos or even clapping. Therefore this rule really no longer applies. You can’t have it both ways.

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Jim DeMint - Joe Wilson was right

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) was right. The President was being dishonest when he said the House health care bill does not providing benefits to illegal immigrants. It does.

1. According to the Congressional Research Service, HR 3200 "does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens participating." The system would essentially operate on an honor system by illegal immigrants.
2. HR 3200 provides State Medicaid agencies with the ability to set eligibility standards for the low income subsidies. Since States are given a 100% federal match, there is nothing to discourage them from setting loose standards that allow illegal immigrants to be enrolled in the program.
3. With the help of the National Council of La Raza, House Democrats defeated two amendments offered to HR 3200 that would have added explicit taxpayer protections to stop benefits from going to illegal immigrants.

Senate Democrats promised Friday to include NEW citizenship verification requirements in their health care bill, proving that Joe Wilson was right about giant loophole in the House bill

(And let us not forget the provision in HR 3200 for free translation services)

Related Resources:

• Rep Joe Wilson – Let’s Move On!!
• Wilson Apologizes But Still Thinks Obama Wasn't Honest
• Fact Check: President Obama Repeats Falsehoods in Joint Session Speech
• Obama… “Will Call You Out”
• ObamaCare Speech: A Bust
• Dems Disregard of American’s Will and Rights: “Blue Dog” Refuses to Let Constituent Videotape Town Hall!
• Be Quiet America, Washington Knows Best
• Video - Jim DeMint to the President: Stop Speaking in Generalities and Defend your Health Plan (Honestly)
• Obama’s Big Political Gamble
• Semper Fi – Now Just Die Obama Pushes Euthanasia on Veterans
• Catastrophe

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power – Cross Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Obama… “We Will Call You Out”

President Obama said yesterday in what should have been his bipartisan reconciliation healthcare reform speech, “If you misrepresent what is in this bill, we will call you out!” Well perhaps that needs to go both ways. When he and congressional Dems misrepresent what is in the bill(s) we need to call them out!

A very frustrated Rep Joe Wilson shouted out to the President, “You Lie”. Certainly not behavior befitting of that setting, but probably a comment born out of frustration in hearing the same old rhetoric and certainly some untruths from the President.

There were quite a few topics including funding of abortions, healthcare coverage of illegals which prompted Rep Wilson’s outcry, death panels and how we were going to pay for this program that were misrepresented by President Obama and much opened ended rhetoric.

There was also no mention of empathy or understanding for all the people, average Americans, who have attended Town Halls and Tea Parties all summer, which pretty much sends the message that ‘I don’t understand or care how you feel, America’. Not exactly the message you want to put forth if you are truly looking for support and pushing bipartisanship.

However when you examine the meat of the speech and realize that except for the tort reform fig leaf, with no details or thought behind it, and Obama’s McCain ploy, pretty much everything the Republicans, moderate Democrats and middle America does or doesn’t want was ignored. Obama says a public option is in; intra-state insurance sales is out and the list of untruths above is being ignored.

The GOP has not been invited to the White House since April for input or discussion, nor have their bills or amendments been included in Congressional discussions. Last night Obama said that if anyone had suggestions or a bill he was interested in hearing what they had to say. Did anyone see the dozen or more Republicans waving bills?? Wonder if they will be invited to the White House today??

V.P. Joe Biden, who is always out of step, said he felt that the President’s speech helped balance the healthcare issue. Wonder which speech he was listening too?

At the moment of this writing, the White House has just announced another speech by President Obama on healthcare this morning (in about 15 minutes), about 12 hours after the last speech. Could this really be true? 91% of people polled after the speech yesterday said it had no effect on them and the coverage on TV, radio, emails and the blogosphere is much more disappointed or negative than positive. In fact they sound down right angry this morning! People are frustrated and tired of Obama’s speeches, of which he has given more than the days he has spent in the Oval Office.

We can only hope that the President has slept on his comments and decided on a new more conciliatory approach. But in reality, is seems more like an attempt to overwhelm us and the system, a major ploy of the left and outlined by Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals. Publically ignoring your opponents is also a control technique. They heard the town hallers and tea partiers, but are pretending to ignore them. With the biggest Tea Party of his administration happening in Washington D.C. on 9/12, President Obama is ‘getting out of Dodge’ to attend a small staged event in Minnesota.

Keep standing up America and keep up the fight… it is one that America can’t lose!! We will keep you updated on the GOP Governors’ teleconference this evening.

Ask Marion

Posted: Daily Thought Pad – Cross Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

HR 3200 (ObamaCare) and Illegals

Just about the time the Center for Immigration Studies was holding a press briefing at the National Press Club about the immigration and health reform connection, proponents from President Obama on down were denying that illegal aliens would receive taxpayer-funded health care under pending legislation.

I’m here to tell you, as I told the Press Club crowd, the legislation on the table does, honest to goodness, effectively extend coverage to illegal aliens.

Take the premium subsidy in the House bill, H.R. 3200. This lies in the part of the legislation (Division A, Title II) that creates a Health Choices Administration, adds the infamous “public option,” sets up and runs the “exchange” clearinghouse for getting insurance, and controls a graduated premium subsidy program through allocation of “individual affordability credits.”

The subsidy, found in Section 242, will give a voucher to people earning between 133 percent of the official poverty level and 400 percent of that income level (or, up to about $88,000 a year for a family of four).

Legal immigrants certainly qualify under H.R. 3200 for this subsidy. Section 242(a)(1) makes eligible "an individual who is lawfully present in a State in the United States (other than as a nonimmigrant described in a subparagraph (excluding subparagraphs (K), (T), (U), and (V)) of section 101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act)."

A political fig leaf purports to keep illegal aliens from receiving the subsidy. Section 246 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."

However, reading the legislation as a whole, its glaring omission is any requirement to verify someone’s immigration or citizenship status. For instance, H.R. 3200 makes no reference to the verification system in current law that’s used for nearly all government welfare and other public programs. If lawmakers wanted enrolling agents, including bureaucrats at the new Health Choices Administration, to use the Systematic Alienage Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, the bill should include a reference and authorize SAVE’s application to this government program.

In other words, the silence of H.R. 3200 regarding SAVE and mandatory verification makes Section 246 just empty words. In fact, the Ways and Means Committee outright voted down an amendment by Rep. Dean Heller to require eligibility verification before qualifying someone to receive a taxpayer subsidy. Also, "lawfully present" covers a lot of ground. Does it include someone here under Temporary Protected Status, for instance? Again, the absence of eligibility verification requirements leaves open a lot of room for waste, fraud, and abuse.

A similar situation of setting up blinders occurs in H.R. 3200’s Medicaid provisions. Division B’s Title VII, Section 1701 expands Medicaid eligibility to those with incomes a third above the federal poverty level. This provision dictates that "the State shall accept without further determination the enrollment under this title of an individual determined by the Commissioner to be a non-traditional Medicaid eligible individual." In other words, the bill prohibits asking any further questions about new Medicaid enrollees.

Rather, the bill section promotes "presumptive eligibility" concerning Medicaid expansion. Read it for yourself, right from Section 1702(a):

(ii) PRESUMPTIVE ELIGIBILITY OPTION- Pursuant to such memorandum, insofar as the memorandum has selected the option described in section 205(e)(3)(B) of the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the State shall provide for making medical assistance available during the presumptive eligibility period and shall, upon application of the individual for medical assistance under this title, promptly make a determination (and subsequent redeterminations) of eligibility in the same manner as if the individual had applied directly to the State for such assistance except that the State shall use the income-related information used by the Commissioner and provided to the State under the memorandum in making the presumptive eligibility determination to the maximum extent feasible. (emphasis added)

And, once again, the lack of any provision mentioning or requiring verification, mandatory use of the SAVE system under this part of the bill, or any other accountability requirement opens the process up to signing up illegal aliens for Medicaid.

In the Energy and Commerce Committee, a mandatory verification amendment was voted down when Rep. Nathan Deal offered it. A political fig leaf amendment was added by voice vote, but the loopholes and potential for waste, fraud, and abuse remain wide open in the Medicaid provisions.

Whatever you think of health reform, a combination of things makes it certain that illegal aliens will receive government health coverage. The most obvious is the omission — heck, the outright rejection of corrective amendments — of eligibility verification requirements. The other factor is the designed ease of enrolling people in Medicaid, for "affordability credits," and the like.

Bottom line, the health legislation Congress is considering establishes an "enroll now, don’t ask questions later" regime. That’s a recipe for covering more people, but many of whom may not actually qualify. A huge number are almost guaranteed to be illegal aliens or legal immigrants still in their first five years in the country who are supposed to turn to their visa sponsor for financial support. And having more people in a public program translates pretty quickly into higher costs. In this case, we’re talking on the order of tens and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Please read more, where C

Does AARP Support This?

Heck Yes!! They are busy trying to play both sides of the fence! – Tell AARP Goodbye and Checkout ASA: American Seniors Association

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Health Care Bill Requires Free Translation Services

For anyone who still doesn’t believe that ObamaCare intends to cover illegal aliens while rationing elderly Americans and Legal Aliens… check this out: free translation services of non-English Speaking patients?!?

Take Action!

Strike Section 1221 (b) from H.R. 3200

Urgent alert! Please act now!

Health Care Reform legislation now pending in Congress would require doctors and hospitals to provide interpreters and translation services free of charge to non-English speaking patients.

That will add $billions to the cost of health care and give immigrants even less incentive to learn English.

The "America's Affordable Health Choices Act," H.R. 3200, Section 1221 (b) says Medicare health care providers that fail to "substantially provide language services to limited English proficient beneficiaries" face severe fines and penalties.

This is outrageous. Medicare is already bankrupt. Now medical providers also will have to provide free translation services.

Send a free email message to your congressional representatives and demand that they remove entitlements to language translation services from health care reform legislation!

Please "Take Action" now!

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Posted: Daily Thought Pad – Cross-Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

Related Resources:

• ObamaCare Will Cover Illegals
• Dems Ensure Illegal Aliens Included in ObamaCare and Other Atrocities
• Catastrophe by Dick Morris - Covers the Healthcare debacle
• Obamacare for Illegal Aliens – While Granny Gets Duty to Die Lecture
• Fighting ObamaCare in the Spirit of Ted Kennedy
• ObamaCare and me – Doctor Zane F. Pollard
• Why Won’t abc and nbc run this ad?
• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly

Read the Bill - HR-3200 - full report

Breakdown Articles of HR-3200 Bill

• DETAILED ANALYSIS OF THE 1000 PAGE HEALTH CARE PLAN BY AND ATTORNEY & DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF LAW
• *Letter to Your Congress Person on Health Care (Obamacare) HR3200
• *A Look at What is Really in the Health Care Bill (HR 3200): Chilling!