Whose Misperceptions II, Or : There He Goes Again … And Again

President Obama repeated twice — once in his interview on Michael Smerconish radio show and again in his pep talk to partisans at the DNC — that it is a “misconception” to claim that his proposed health-care reform (or health insurance reform, or whatever it is) would cover illegal immigrants. On the Smerconish show, for example, he claimed:

This has been an example of just pure misinformation out there. None of the bills that have been voted on in Congress, and none of the proposals coming out of the White House propose giving coverage to illegal immigrants — none of them,” he said. “That has never been on the table; nobody has discussed it. So everybody who is listening out there, when you start hearing that somehow this is all designed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants, that is simply not true and has never been the case.

And, added the Los Angeles Times (from which the above quote comes) for good measure,

The House bill, H.R. 3200, excludes anyone who is not a legal resident of the United States from coverage of extended insurance provisions. Section 246 reads, “Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.”

Let’s leave it to the lawyers to decide whether “nothing … shall allow” is in fact an outright prohibition. A bigger problem, ignored by the president and his fawning defenders (see the MSNBC report, linked above, of his DNC remarks), is that, as I’ve recently noted, two House committees voted down by party line votes two Republican amendments that would have required verification of eligibility. So, on one hand, you’ve got the president’s and his supporters’ repeated accusations of “misperception,” and on the other you’ve got arguments, with evidence, such as the following:

The health care reform bills Congress is considering would not require people who sign up for government health care programs to verify their eligibility. That opens the door for millions of illegal aliens and other non-citizens to receive medical services paid for by taxpayers, a panel of experts from the conservative Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and The Heritage Foundation said Wednesday.

“This takes an unprecedented step in opening up the U.S. welfare system to illegal immigrants,” Robert Rector, senior fellow on domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation, told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington.

“We have had a system of identity checks that largely prevents adult illegal immigrants from getting onto these means-tested welfare programs,” Rector continued, but the Democrats refused to allow those same identity checks to be added to the health-care reform bills.

Rector said people signing up for government-run health care programs would not have to substantiate that they are in this country legally. “The health care reform legislation turns that on its back and tramples it into the dust,” Rector said. “It basically says, ‘We will not verify, we will not check, we have a complete open door for every illegal immigrant, current and in the future, to simply enroll and receive benefits under this program.’

According to James Edwards, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies,

“They make it easy to enroll new people in government-run health programs with what amounts to built-in willful ignorance about characteristics which would be disqualifying, such as being here on a temporary VISA or being under one’s sponsorship requirements, or being here illegally,” Edwards added….

Edwards said two amendments proposed in the House to require verification of citizenship and other qualifications were voted down and that Senate legislation also lacks any kind of verification provision.

“Congressman Dean Heller (R-Nev.) offered an amendment in the Ways and Means Committee to correct that, but it was defeated along party lines,” Edwards said. “Senate legislation omits the same eligibility verification requirements that would ensure that only lawful immigrants and U.S. citizens benefit under these programs.”

Edwards noted that during the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s markup, Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) offered an amendment that would require a check on immigration and citizenship status of those being signed up for Medicaid. “It would apply the same verification standards and use the same existing verification system that’s in the Medicaid statute. This taxpayer protection amendment lost on a largely party line vote, by a single vote,” Edwards said.

But wait; there’s more Illegal aliens are exempt from fines imposed on citizens and legal residents!

The Senate Finance Committee has released only an outline of its health care plan — not a full draft — and that outline penalizes U.S. citizens and legal residents while allowing illegal aliens access to free health care, Edwards said.

“The Finance Committee outline, like … the House bills, mandates that individuals must carry health insurance or else face a fine,” Edwards said. “The Finance outline says that illegal aliens will be exempt from that individual mandate. It sets up a system where you’ve got Americans and legal immigrants who have to have coverage or else pay a fine,” Edwards said. “But illegal aliens would escape the mandate and any fine for not being insured.

If you subsidize something, of course, you tend to get more of it.

Panelists said the current health care legislation could, in fact, not only benefit illegal aliens but actually encourage more people to come into this country illegally. Rector called it a system that would establish “transnational welfare outreach.”

“In short, the health reform plans that are on the table will create new incentives, at least marginally, for illegal immigration,” Edwards said. “They’ll reward illegal aliens by giving them health care at no expense to themselves and they’ll further weaken the important public charge doctrine that has long served our national immigration policy so well.”

Let us also note, as James Taranto did yesterday (quoting an article from Roll Call last month), that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus believes illegals would be covered:

A CHC member, who requested not to be identified, said the group is urging Pelosi to ensure that everyone — including illegal immigrants — will be able to receive services as part of comprehensive reform.

“We’re pushing to include everyone in the health care bill. Everyone,” said one CHC member.

Asked if CHC leaders will ask Pelosi to specifically spell something out in the bill to address illegal immigrants, the Member said no. Rather, the Member said the CHC simply wants to make sure the bill — as drafted — doesn’t prohibit illegal immigrants from accessing care.

“Sometimes if you don’t say something, something happens,” said the Hispanic lawmaker.

The president also repeated to the Smerconish and DNC audiences that another of the persistent “misconceptions” perpetrated by those whom he had earlier accused of “bearing false witness” is that his proposed health-care/insurance (or whatever) reform would pay for abortions. But here, even the White House’s and MSNBC’s (but I repeat myself) favorite clueless “fact checker” at the Associated Press seemed unable to avoid the truth altogether, although he did try to sidestep it:

THE POLL: 50 percent expect taxpayer dollars will be used to pay for abortions; 37 percent don’t.

THE FACTS: The House version of legislation would allow coverage for abortion in the public plan. But the procedure would be paid for with dollars from beneficiary premiums, not from federal funds. Likewise, private plans in the new insurance exchange could opt to cover abortion, but no federal subsidies would be used to pay for the procedure.

Opponents say the prohibition on federal money for the procedure is merely a bookkeeping trick and what matters is that Washington would allow abortion to be covered under government-subsidized insurance.

Obama has stated that the U.S. should continue its tradition of “not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care.” Current laws prohibiting public financing of abortion would stay on the books.

Here is part of a sensible discussion of the abortion issue in today’s Washington Post by Michael Gerson:

Abortions would be funded out of the premiums that come from individuals, not money from taxpayers. But this is a cover, if not a con. By the nature of health insurance, premiums are not devoted to specific procedures; they support insurance plans. It matters nothing in practice if a premium dollar comes from government or the individual — both enable the same coverage. If the federal government directly funds an insurance plan that includes elective abortion, it cannot claim it is not paying for elective abortions.

In fact, any national approach to this issue is likely to challenge the current social consensus on abortion. The House bill would result in federal funding for abortion on an unprecedented scale. But forbidding federal funds to private insurers that currently cover elective abortions (as some insurers do) would amount, as pro-choice advocates note, to a restriction on the availability of abortion. Either way, government will send a powerful, controversial social signal.

I would pointedly repeat, “Whose Misconceptions?” except that I don’t think the president suffers from misconceptions. He knows perfectly well what he is proposing and what he hopes will pass. He mentioned, again, on the Smerconish show that he was unwilling to compromise on “core principles,” one of which is that “Americans who don’t have health insurance should get it.” Similarly, in his remarks to religious leaders on Wednesday he emphasized:

I believe that nobody in America should be denied basic health care because he or she lacks health insurance, and no one in America should be pushed to the edge of financial ruin because an insurance company denies them coverage or drops their coverage or charges fees they can’t afford for care that they desperately need….

In his July 22 news conference President Obama said “This is not just about the 47 million Americans who don’t have any health insurance at all.” In his Portsmouth, New Hampshire, “Town Hall” on August 11 he repeated (except for a missing million this time):

I don’t have to explain to you that nearly 46 million Americans don’t have health insurance coverage today. In the wealthiest nation on earth, 46 million of our fellow citizens have no coverage. They’re just vulnerable. If something happens, they go bankrupt or they don’t get the care they need.

Do you really think he doesn’t know that the “46 [or 47] million Americans” who don’t have health insurance includes a substantial number of illegal immigrants? I don’t either.

So if he doesn’t think illegal immigrants would be covered under his proposal, why does he keep repeating a number that includes them?