POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Obamacare: there they go again…

As the Obamacare debate proceeds in the Senate, and as concerned Americans wonder what provisions the final product will really contain, it has come to light that one of the major assurances that the President gave the public during his now famous address to a joint session of Congress may have, like so many of his other promises, reached it's expiration date:

Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants could receive health care coverage from their employers under the 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 the bills do not have exemptions to screen out illegal immigrants, who usually obtain jobs by using false identities and are indistinguishable from legal workers.

"This is a complete cover-all-the-gaps federal health insurance for illegals, whether it be under Medicaid, the refundable tax credit or whether it be under their employers who would not be able to verify their employers unless we fix E-Verify," said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee.

How to deal with immigrants, both legal and illegal, remains one of the thorniest issues in the health care debate. In his address to a joint session of Congress in September, Mr. Obama specifically challenged Republicans who said his plans would extend coverage to illegal immigrants.

"This, too, is false -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally," Mr. Obama said.

That statement elicited an outburst of "You lie" from Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican.

It's pretty clear what the President said then, and it isn't clear whether he's called leaders Pelosi and Reid to remind them not to include language that violates any of his pledges.  That begs the question though; would he threaten to veto any legislation that countermands the committments he's made?  And if not, then doesn't that mean that, regardless of the disrespectful way in which he challenged the President's pronouncement, Wilson's statement was essentially correct?

I'll leave it to each reader to decide the answer for themselves.  But I will point out that if this report is correct, then how many more "assurances" were simply political posturing; Just Words!

And I'll also remind any that oppose the health care bill, which is a majority of the public according to the most recent polls, to contact your Senators and Representatives daily, by e-mail or telephone, and express not only your desire for them to vote "No!" should the bill ever come to the floor for a vote, but perhaps to remind them that should they do otherwise, then you will work tirelessly on behalf of their opponents in the next election cycle.

This issue is too important to slack off now, so steel your resolve and keep up the good fight against this budget busting abomination, that will end up costing the US economy as much as 6 trillion dallars over 10 years according to the Cato institute, that is being portrayed as fair, enlightened, public policy.

Rocketman