You Lie!

That was the emotional outburst of Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, immediately following the President's statement in his healthcare speech tonight, that illegals wouldn't be covered. Rep. Wilson apologized to the President for his incivility immediately following the speech.

I can sympathize with Rep. Wilson, though. It seemed the longer the speech went on, the more I wanted to scream the same thing at the TV screen.

But first, President Obama said a few things that I think all people CAN agree on.

-You shouldn't lose your coverage in the middle of being sick.
-Everyone should be able to get health insurance.
-Costs need to be controlled.

But back to the stretched truths/omissions/ lies.

"First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have."

I guess he forgot about how he proposed totally eliminating the Medicare Advantage program. Or the fact that the bill proposes taking $500 billion dollars from Medicare, supposedly without cutting benefits to seniors. RIGHT... Senior citizens aren't stupid. They know that you can't take big money off the table like that without cutting services. If there was that much "fraud and abuse" to be found in the nearly bankrupt Medicare system, the government would have found it by now.

Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

As Sarah Palin pointed out today in a Wall Street Journal editorial:

Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He's asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of "normal political channels," should guide decisions regarding that "huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . ."

While many don't want to call that a "death panel", what would you call a panel that is set up to save money by denying care to old people? This panel would be modeled after the UK's NICE committee, which has been blamed for people's premature deaths there.

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false - the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

This one is more than a bit disingenuous. While the bill denies coverage for illegals, it has absolutely no enforcement mechanism to keep them from signing up and getting covered. So yes, your tax dollars will cover illegal aliens.

And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up - under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.

The House would not pass an amendment that outright outlawed funding of abortion in the public option, and this group feels that it would be covered the way the law is written. I happen to think that they're right, and just want to get the law passed, then let one of the 53 new bureaucracies determine that abortion should be included. Then claim that they didn't know that would happen. RIGHT...

Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits - either now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize.

When has there ever been a federal program that didn't cost more than they said it would. And if more spending cuts are in the offing, I'd be very scared, grandma.