When President Obama said, during Wednesday night's health care address to Congress, that illegal immigrants would not be covered under his "plan," Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina couldn't contain himself and shouted out. From the transcript:
There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.AUDIENCE MEMBER: You lie! (Boos.)THE PRESIDENT: It's not true...
Rep. Wilson has been excoriated by Newsweek, Keith Olbermann, and other usual suspects for his outburst. Notwithstanding that other Congressmen have performed much more disgracefully in the past. I thought Mr. Wilson's ouburst inappropriate and boorish, and said so. But, then again, if the President was telling the truth, why would this be necessary?
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 [sic] 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.
This was no oversight. Democrats defeated - twice - amendments to put in just such safeguards against illegal immigrants obtaining insurance coverage under the bill's provisions. So now the scramble is underway to make the bill match the President's vow - after the fact. However ...
However, we now clearly know that at the time that Mr. Obama said it, he was not speaking the truth. And the Congressional Democrats in the room all knew it too, because they had defeated the amendments that would make it so.
