The GOP claims that the Democratic healthcare reform bill in the works give a free medical ride to illegal aliens. One GOP congressman shouted "You lie!" during President Obama's address to Congress when he said nothing in the healthcare reform bills permitted illegals getting in on the gravy train.
Thank heavens for factfinding nonpartisan organizations like www.Politifact.com, which read the whole bill in its present form in both the House and the Senate.
They said the President was correct, and it was the GOP that's lying about this.
But.
In its current form nothing in the bills includes any regulatory mechanism to prevent illegals from purchasing health insurance--private or, potentially, public--exactly the same as the status quo.
I note that the GOP did nothing to remedy this while they were in power. So while I want a regulatory mechanism in healthcare reform to exclude illegals (even when they have anchor babies), I see no reason to believe the GOP minds--except as a partisan ploy.
So we should disdain the lies the GOP is promoting--while at the same time urging our congressmen to add a regulatory mechanism to all social service legislation to exclude citizens of other countries who are here illegally.
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Actually, this may be a big impediment to the expectations of a liberal "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill."
If the bill illegalizes current illegal immigrants and then obtain subsidized medical insurance – opponents of the current bill will claim that the president did, in fact, lie. The Obama Administration can’t allow that to happen. It would cost too much politically. Besides, legalizing them and giving them subsidized insurance would cost way too much. Legalizing 5 million uninsured, low-wage, illegal immigrants, allowing them to bring their families, and have kids will easily cost $100 billion or more over 10 years: a second deal breaker.
Allowing that many people legalize their status but remain uninsured and use emergency rooms will undermine everything else the Administration is trying to do – particularly controlling costs and encouraging employers to offer coverage. Nor will employers offer coverage to people legally here if they can continue hiring illegals without the expense.
There’s a third option that, in theory, solves these problems: a mandate that everyone getting legal status have full, unsubsidized, employer provided medical insurance. Now if the illegals are actually here doing only valuable jobs that the native-born refuse to do, that would work just fine: The employers would have no choice but to pay up if they want to fill the jobs.
But there are two enormous problems with that:
One of the pillars of the “Immigration Reform” movement are the employers who just want cheap labor. They don’t want to pay thousand of dollars extra per year to employ janitors and farm hands. That defeats the whole purpose of “Immigration Reform” – cheap labor. Put a mandatory medical insurance provision in the immigration bill and the employers are OUT!
An even bigger problem is that most of the illegals just won’t find a sponsoring employer willing to pay for an unsubsidized policy. The truth is that the illegals ARE COMPETING with everyone else and willing to work cheaper. If you make the employers pay for unsubsidized insurance, they lose their competitive edge: They are more expensive. Even many of the illegals that have insurance now can’t compete with those who have subsidized insurance. So they won’t find sponsors either. And a lot of the Democratic labor base would actually be quite pleased to see them priced out of the market and forced to go home.
So most of the illegals will not qualify for the “path to citizenship.” That might suit the Obama Administration. He never promised that the “path to citizenship” would be easy or available to everyone. It gets rid of lots of unemployed people in the middle of a severe recession.
Eventually the immigrant rights groups will figure out that their “only taking jobs that Americans don’t want” lie will be exposed. So then they will bail on the bill and “immigration reform” will die.
I generally agree with Kevin's points--but then I'm against legalizing illegals. The question--especially for this forum--is, how do we argue with taxpayers who favor amnesty?
To do that, we have to look at the principles and traditions of the Democratic Party that amnesty violates. We have to argue that being a good Democrat means supporting the American laborers who have been pauperized and displaced by illegal immigrant labor.
I believe that's true. But the people who favor amnesty aren't working stiffs. They're educated middle class liberals who don't directly suffer as a result of illegal immigration.
So for them their generosity with other people's lives and money has no direct downside.
Still, no one consciously wants to be ideologically inconsistent, and the only way amnestyites can be consistent is to reject the concept of nation. That lets them deny the validity of borders, or of controlling vast movements of populations.
However, that position is total hypocrisy except for those who live off the grid and never travel--and it is even for them, actually, since you can only live off the grid in a peaceful place. You can't do it in Somalia, for example, even if you're a Somali. And for those who live on the grid--they're just biting the hand that feeds them. And if you're traveling in, say, Austria, and the police detain you--who ya gonna call? The United Nations' Human Rights Commission?
I'm not knocking the UN here--just pointing out that Americans depend heavily on our nation being a sovereign nation--and then act like they don't to make nonsensical ideological points.
Perhaps the best way to tackle this is to show them the logical consequences of their stance.
One thing that works--at least a bit--is to point out that each American contributes a Latin American village-worth of global warming and pollution, so favoring amnesty is anti-Green.
Another is that I've noticed amnestyites always imply or state that this problem is America's fault. Wrong-o. It's the fault of Mexico's fivefold population explosion since 1940. Any "comprehensive immigration reform" that purports to get at the root of the problem has to tackle this, because Mexicans are still having many, many babies. Exactly how is this America's fault?
But remember--no matter how articulate you are, you will lose every argument you engage in unless you can figure out how to validate your opponent's existence, no matter how much it may hurt.
Because face it, we're basically talking chimps--and I don't exempt myself from that. So you have to deal with emotional realities (without ever saying so explicitly) in order to win over whoever you're arguing with.
This means stifling yourself in some ways. When you're clever at the others' expense, they're reject your argument, even if you win the debate. The next day they'll act as if the discussion never happened.
Soft words, gentle leading. It's hard. So hard. I know. But it's what we've gotta do.
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