Posted by
Patrick Henry on Saturday, September 12, 2009 7:35:54 PM
A response to my last post raises an interesting question. Just who is lying about healthcare reform?
The respondent took the hopelessly naive position that if the legislation doesn't specifically permit
those in the country illegally to enroll in the "public option," then they can't. Therefore, President
Obama was being truthful in his address to congress, despite Congressman Wilson calling him a
liar. The laws of logic tell us that a thing cannot be true and untrue at the same time. So ether
Obama and his defenders or Wilson and his supporters must ve lying.
To sort it out, one need look only at the bill itself, legal precedent and history. House Resolution
3200 does not say in plain language that illegal aliens may sign up for government run healthcare. But
in case after case, entitlement after entitlement, the courts have ruled that what is not specifically
prohibited is permitted. Those wishing to defraud the government have siphoned off billions of
taxpayer dollars, not because they were qualified to receive government benefitsbut because the law
upon which the entitlement was based provided no enforceable standard for excluding them. Those
loopholes have had to be closed one at a time by successor legislation, and the U.S. treasury continues
to bleed green because many are still wide open. the House resolution in effect places illegal aliens on
an honor system, trusting that they will not try to sign up for government funded healthcare. These
are people who entered the country illegally, who have falsified documentation in order to work and
who continue to live here in defiance of the law and are professional cheaters of the system.. Are
Obama and the Democrats really so stupid that they believe this group of lawbreakers will not
seek to exploit such an easy target as free government healthcare with no mechanism to keep them
out? Do they think the rest of America is that stupid? No, they don't. It is therefore clear that he, and
they are disingenuous in their claim that healthcare reform, as they have proposed it, will not
cover illegal aliens.
More dishonesty surfaces regarding the use of public funds for abortion. The public option,
along with many of the other plans that might be included in any insurance exchange under
Obamacare will provide "reproductive healthcare," a favorite Democrat euphemism for abortion,
and one Obama himself has used time and again. If the public option includes "reproductive
healthcare," and that includes abortion, by what possible stretch of credulity can Obama say that
no public funds will go to pay for abortions? Democrats have struck down nine different measures
attempting to specifically exclude abortion from coverage. The bill doesn't say abortions are
covered. But it also doesn't say that they aren't. The logical maxim that a thing cannot at the same
time be true and untrue, and the time-honored legal principle that what is not specifically forbidden
is permitted, along with decades of unchecked welfare fraud tell us all we need to know. Obama
and Democrats fully intend to fund backdoor abortions and to do so with public funds. And he,
and they are lying to the American people by saying otherwise.
Then there is the matter of cost control and deficit spending. Obama argued again in his speech that
his healthcare reform will "bring down costs" and add nothing to the deficit. Yet the non-partisan says
that the plan will likely not bring down costs and, in some cases, may increase them, and that over ten
years an beyond will add to and create unsustainable deficits. Is it more likely that a partisan political
group pushing their agenda is playing fast and loose with numbers, or that a non-partisan, highly credible
watchdog agency has gotten it completely wrong? It seems to many a classic proof of the adage that
while figures don't lie, liars figure. Both of these positions cannot, at the same time, be true. The one
pushing the untruth is lying.
The Democrats are rabidly pursuing policies contrary to the wishes of the American people. The
polls make it crystal clear. The closure of Guantanamo Bay, the investigation of CIA interrogators, the
public funding of abortion, amnesty for illegal aliens, cap-and-trade energy tax, unending bailouts
the blockage of offshore drilling and card check forced unionism are all minority positions. Yet Democrats
believe they know better than other Americans and have made it clear that they intend to use the
bully pulpit of the presidency and their cngressional majorities to ram their agenda down America's
throat. They have apparently forgotten the lesson of 1994 and are oblivious to the principle that fools
who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.