On the night of September 9, 2009, a still highly popular President Barack Obama spoke spiritedly to a joint session of Congress. He had summoned the members of both parties to introduce his plan to transform American health care.
The promises he made that night were many and, to most in the television audience, at least, sounded fresh. “Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have,” said the president. “Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.”
Simmering throughout this litany of disinformation was an obscure five-term South Carolina congressman named Joe Wilson. When Obama denounced as false the claim that this proposed health care system “would insure legal immigrants,” Wilson could hold his tongue no longer. “You lie!” he yelled.
He was castigated by members of both parties, the ObamaMedia literally went insane and he was made to apologize, saying,
This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility.
The usual suspects backed Obama. Factcheck.org, for instance, said at the time that “Obama was correct when he said his plan wouldn’t insure illegal immigrants; the House bill expressly forbids giving subsidies to those who are in the country illegally.” In an effort to keep some resemblance of credibility, they changed their tune and Obama actually won PolitiFact’s 2013 “Lie of the Year” Award, further vindicating Wilson.
Not only doesn’t ObamaCare bar non-citizens from buying their own health insurance coverage through the health insurance exchange, but prior to the president’s speech, Democrats twice rejected amendments to the bill requiring documentation of legal status in the United States in order to receive ObamaCare benefits, something President Obama knew full well.
The Spanish-language version of the Covered California exchange says: “Fear not if you are undocumented and want to enroll your family in health insurance.” Nowhere on the site does it mention that illegal aliens aren’t eligible for benefits or prohibited by law from enrolling in ObamaCare. That language is present on every ObamaCare site across the country.
Interestingly, he blamed congress for any deportations that had occurred, saying he had already stretched his “administrative capacity very far” by taking immigration actions using “prosecutorial discretion,” a fancy way of saying that the Administration wasn’t prosecuting illegal aliens in deportation hearings or making much of an effort to find and deport the over 500,000 illegal aliens who already had outstanding deportation orders filed against them at the time.
What this amounts to is that illegal aliens were and have definitely been applying for ObamaCare, especially since most of them qualify for the subsidies, at least as far as any income they’re reporting. Certainly it would be interesting to see exactly how many of the enrollees the president is thumping his chest about are in the country illegally. So Rep. Joe Wilson had it exactly right. The President was lying through his teeth, and he knew it even as Rep. Wilson called him out on it. The meme has already shifted from ‘no non-citizens will be eligible for ObamaCare’ to ‘why shouldn’t undocumented workers be covered?’
Illegal aliens receive taxpayer funded ObamaCare benefits the same way they receive Section 8 housing, food stamps, welfare, and tax refunds for earned income credit and for children who may or may not exist. They simply apply, and the system processes them with a deliberate ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.
No one’s checking, not really. And if course, if you object to being robbed blind to pay for it and to being lied to to facilitate the theft and the con, you’re simply ra-aaa-a-cist.
In 2019, there is a growing list of Democrats (such as 2020 Presidential candidates Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris) eager to provide free healthcare to illegal immigrants.
Sources:
Rep. Joe Wilson Had It Right When He Yelled Out ‘You Lie’ To Obama
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/joe_wilson_was_right.html
Rep. Joe Wilson Had It Right When He Yelled Out ‘You Lie’ To Obama
