Way to center the discussion (which was health care reform, remember?) on the edges of irrelevance.

CHC’s constituency has citizens and voters in it who would prefer more services be provided to illegal immigrants. This constituency is made up of citizens, and legal voters (about 2/3 of all Spanish-speakers in the US are legal immigrants). They voted for their representatives, and their representatives advance their preferences in Congress. This all seems very sneaky to you, I know, because some of these people are non-white, but it’s the regular work of the Constitution. In any event, none of their recommendations were placed into the bill, a fact that you conveniently overlook.

Why again shouldn’t we have comprehensive health care reform and a strong public option? Would you like to take this opportunity to get shrill about death panels, or claim that there were 2 million protesters in Washington on the 12th?

Perhaps you’d like to make up some new kind of objection. Does the public option spread alien viruses? Does it secretly encourage interracial marriage? Ooo — do the one where it’s a Stalinist plot to seize Ronald Reagan’s corpse.

Sorry I haven’t been around, I was out of the country on business – earning the daily wage so I can pay for other peoples’ health care and all.

I just love how you think that the CHC looking out for illegals represents their constituency. Do you see the delicious irony in that statement? You equated illegals with their constituency – brilliant! Last time I checked, constituents are voters from a representative’s district. Did I miss something? I know htat RTV and others would love to give illegals the right to vote, but I don’t think it has happened ….yet.

No bill in Congress covers illegals. No bill in Congress covers illegals. We are disagreeing about ENFORCEMENT of HR 3200, which explicitly excludes illegals.

The fact that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus wants the bill to cover illegals is their right and a way for them to represent their constituency. That’s normal. Their recommendations were NOT included in the bill. Your suspicion that there is some secret society of people who have agreed in secret not to enforce the provisions of a Congressional bill is, very simply, a wacked-out conspiracy theory. The advantage of that theory is that it gives you, at least to yourself, justification in opposing any reform made by a party that you don’t subscribe to.

And this is the problem with the far right-wing obstruction of health insurance reform. Reformers say that we need to insure more people and bring down costs, and opponents say “death panels!” Reformers say that we are paying too much for too little care, and opponents say “illegals!” Now that we’re on the fourth wave of misinformation — after ‘read the bill,’ ‘this is socialism,’ ‘death panels,’ and now ‘covers illegals’ — it should be clear to people watching that you don’t care if we have reform, you don’t want reform, and you’re willing to say virtually anything to oppose it.

You go on and on about how a longer bill must be a better one (wow, what unassailable logic that is)yet you are opposed to putting in one or two sentences indicating that individuals must present proof of citizenship before getting something paid for by the American public? Good to see intellectual consistency is not your strong suit. And naturally, as the left is wont to do, they play the race card when individuals object to taxpayer dollars being spent on illegals that are breaking American immigration law.

Anyone who swallows Nick’s nonsense probably shouldn’t visit the following links:
http://www.rollcall.com/news/37180-1.html?type=printer_friendly

http://www.examiner.com/x-9384-Mesa-Independent-Examiner~y2009m8d12-Health-care-reform-to-cover-illegal-immigrants

THe following paragraph from the above link is very revealing:
“This week, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) also urged Speaker Pelosi to ensure that illegal aliens are covered by the health care reform bill. (Roll Call, July 24, 2009). According to a CHC member, the organization’s leaders are not asking Speaker Pelosi to ‘specifically spell something out’ in the bill, but instead to seek to ensure that the bill does not actually prohibit illegal aliens from receiving benefits. ‘We’re pushing to include everyone in the health care bill. ‘Everyone’, the CHC member who asked not to be identified said. ‘SOMETIMES IF YOU DON’T SAY SOMETHING, SOMETHING HAPPENS’” (emphasis mine).

Yeah, tell me again how Joe Wilson was lying.

And please, no one is falling for the hilarious attempts at trying to rebrand the issue by calling it “health insurance reform” instead of “health care reform”. Seriously Nick, do you visit the DNC website before you come here so that you will be able to parrot their talking points exactly, or do you just “borrow” them from some left-wing blog.

Those who don’t think the House bill will be a disaster should probably read what the CBO has said about the bill. For those who don’t want to google it, I will graciously provide the links.

The CBO detailing how the Democrat House bill will increase, not decrease, the cost of health care, excuse me insurance (what a joke):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071602242.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE56F6GT20090716

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53521

The CBO detailing how the House bill, and the Kennedy-Dodd bill, will increase the deficit:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124791492292561969.html

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/06/17/what-cbo-says-about-the-kennedy-dodd-health-bill/

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25104.html

As for Joe Wilson, please quit lecturing people about the guy calling people liars when Barack Obama, nearly everyday, says the same thing about those who have legitimate questions about his healthcare plan. Questioning the president doesn’t make one a liar, or a demagogue, nor does it mean you are opposing him purely for political purposes. If Obama doesn’t want to be called a liar, he should stop throwing around the accusation himself.

Anyone? Little…democracy…here?

Besides, the reform in Congress right now is about health INSURANCE (payment of doctors and hospitals for services received), not health CARE (going to the doctor). The idea is that if we create a system in which all Americans (and here I am talking about American citizens) can afford doctor’s visits, the amount we spend on emergency room entitlements for them will decrease greatly.

Because we do, right now, treat everybody who comes to an emergency room. That’s the system /today/ — and no Democratic plan (HR 3200, Baucus, HELP, etc.) would change that, and the Republican plan (do nothing) wouldn’t change it either. I personally think it would be a bad rule to change, but that’s moot because nobody’s ever suggested changing it.

But I’m trying to work with you. Maybe some kind of Department of Homeland Security access to public option insurance records? Strict identification requirements before public option enrollment? Can you see the difference between shouting “you lie” “illegals suck” and trying to make a positive change?

Straight talk. What enforcement mechanism do you feel would be appropriate to keep illegal immigrants from getting health care under this bill? Name a method that would be sufficient for you, and you and I will both write suggestions to the Senate Finance Committee saying that this would make compromise on the bill easier.

OT: Since Obama seems to have forgotten about closing Gitmo, does that make him more conservative or Bush more moderate?

I get that you want illegals deported. Your quotes don’t prove anything except that Obama (like Bush, I have to say) is kind of a moderate on immigration reform and that he’s ready to have that discussion when the Congress takes it up.

Nobody in this debate has attempted or suggested making illegal immigrants legal. Your fears that this may one day happen are completely irrelevant to the question at hand.

I invite you to start working for fair, legally enforced, immigration reform. Nobody’s stopping you.

Are you happy? Can we have health care reform now?