NYT Editorial: Immigrants, Health Care, and Lies

[last_texas_dem]

>>>>Illegal immigration is an all-purpose policy explosive. Toss it into any debate and, boom, discussion stops because you’ve got people afraid that benefits or services might be going to those who don’t deserve them.

The bomb went off again on Wednesday night when President Obama told Congress that his reforms would not apply to illegal immigrants. Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina then blurted his way into talk-radio immortality with two words: “You lie!”

Mr. Obama didn’t lie. The bills before Congress declare illegal immigrants to be ineligible for subsidized benefits. It is impossible to imagine any final bill doing otherwise. Mr. Wilson was a boor, but some Republicans still insist that he was right because the bill doesn’t ensure that the undocumented have no insurance.>>> snip

>>>Hard-line Republicans insist that they will fight for citizenship verification. They could, in theory, get the country to spend whatever it takes to do that and proudly report back to their voters. But there is a line beyond which antipathy to the undocumented can be damaging to those voters’ health, not to mention the federal budget. Mr. Wilson and his admirers seem to have crossed it.>>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/opinion/11fri2.html?adxnnl=1&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1252670447-xLlMS0Fy3JxK0riKNxl55A

[WyLoochka]

1. We already know the budget busting effects of "verification"

per the same NYT editorial:

"we’ve tried that: A House oversight committee reviewed six state Medicaid programs in 2007 and found that verification rules had cost the federal government an additional $8.3 million. They caught exactly eight illegal immigrants."