First, when Barack Obama said that no illegal immigrants would be covered, Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, shouted out, "you lie."
Did Obama lie?
Technically no, but the bill he did want passed before August, the full House Bill, HR3200 did not exclude illegal aliens from various benefits, so Obama did lie about that and Representative Wilson was correct.
Obama lied.
Le-gal-In-sur-rec-tion:
So using the two measures, the non-existent Obama bill and the draft Senate HELP Committee bill which was not a full Senate proposal, Obama was correct.
But if the standard is the full House Bill, HR3200, then it appears that Obama was incorrect. There is nothing in HR3200 that excludes illegal aliens from the various coverage provisions (with a few limited exceptions). The Congressional Research Service agrees with this assessment (full report embedded below). For example, with regard to health care exchanges, the CRS found:H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens—whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently—participating in the Exchange.Since the Obama administration wanted a full House vote passing HR3200 prior to the August recess, Obama was okay with a bill that included illegal aliens.
The next point is about how the incident was reported by The New York Times in quoting Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff:
In an angry and very audible outburst, Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, interrupted President Obama’s speech Wednesday night with a shout of “You lie!”
His eruption — in response to Mr. Obama’s statement that Democratic health proposals would not cover illegal immigrants — stunned members of both parties in the House chamber.
Democrats said it showed lack of respect for the office of the presidency and was reminiscent of Republican disruptions at recent public forums on health care.
“It is outrageous,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, who said it reminded him of the “antics that are being used to disrupt and fog what is going on.”
After the speech, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff who sat a few rows in front of Mr. Wilson, said he immediately approached senior Republican lawmakers to encourage them to identify the heckler and urge him to issue an apology quickly.
“No president has ever been treated like that. Ever,” Mr. Emanuel said.
Evidently, Mr. Emanuel has a short memory or simply has none, but as Mere Rhetoric points out, via video flashback, in 2005, at the State of the Union address no less, Democrats did shout and boo at George Bush, so please, the false outrage is comical coming from Democrats.
No matter about the hypocrisy, Wilson did later apologize, something the Democrats in 2005, didn't do.
Now to the meat and potatoes of the speech itself, I turn you over to the AP article that does a little fact checking on Obama's speech and concludes:
President Barack Obama used only-in-Washington accounting Wednesday when he promised to overhaul the nation's health care system without adding "one dime" to the deficit. By conventional arithmetic, Democratic plans would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars.
The president's speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance.
Oh, and the biggest lie of all, I saved for last. Obama kept referring to his "plan", yet Obama has not submitted any plan.
Power Line goes through certain statements made by Obama and does a little fact checking of their own... go read.
Chris Reed points to a piece in The Hill, by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, explaining more on the illegal immigrants being covered and paid for by the American people issue:
Despite statements to the contrary, the Obama administration could force the American people to pay for the healthcare of millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S.
The Democrats’ bill in the House, H.R. 3200, contains gaping loopholes that will allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded benefits. And these loopholes are no accident.
The legislation contains no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal immigrants do not apply for benefits. Republicans offered an amendment to close this loophole — it would have required verification using the existing methods that are already in place to verify eligibility for other federal benefits programs. But, when they were asked to put the language of the bill where their words were, in a party-line vote, House Democrats rejected the amendment to require verification and close this loophole.
The bill also leaves open the possibility that if one citizen family member is eligible for benefits, then the entire family — including illegal immigrants — is also eligible for the benefits.
If Americans aren’t already concerned enough about the astronomical costs of the healthcare proposal, this taxpayer-funded benefit for lawbreakers should sound the alarms.
Quote of the day goes to AllahPundit over at Hot Air. It isn't easy to make me laugh before my coffee, so he deserves the last word.
The culprit was South Carolina rep Joe Wilson, who felt moved to act when The One told what was, in fact, a lie. Although certainly not his biggest of the night: Where this jackass gets off lecturing Americans on civility after his cretinous cronies spent a month demagoging the hell out of every protester in sight is beyond me. You’re Mr. Clean, aren’t you, champ? And bottom-feeders like Harry Reid are your hatchet men. Nice work if you can get it.
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