Democrats stop citizen verification requirement in healthcare reform bill

  When Joe Wilson shouted out “you lie” during the president’s address to a joint session of congress he was referring to the issue of whether illegal aliens would be eligible for healthcare under the proposals being debated in congress.

  While there was technically no language in the bills that would grant illegal aliens access to free healthcare, there was no language in the bills that required a person to verify his citizenship. This is a loophole that would allow illegals to get free healthcare– there would be no questions asked to any illegal that applied for healthcare.

  President Obama, after Joe Wilson’s outburst, issued a memo stating that the loophole should be closed and that citizenship verification language should be added to the bill, this was an admission that Joe Wilson was right on a technicality.

  During the healthcare debate today Republicans tried to insert language into the bill that would require the citizenship verification that President Obama called for– only to have it thwarted by Democrats.

  So while the bill calls for a person to provide his or her name, birthplace, and social security number there is no language in the bill that would require them to prove that they are in this country legally. That is the point that Joe Wilson was trying to make all along, that is the point that the president conceded when he asked that the language be added to the bill, and that is the point that Republicans tried to make by inserting language that would have made it harder for illegals to cheat the system.

  Without the specific language in the bill that would require a person to prove they are a citizen of the United States the door is open to fraud. Anybody will be able to apply for free healthcare and receive it, citizen or not, because the Democrats have ensured that nobody who applies for free healthcare will have to prove that they are eligible for it.