The Wonk Room

Michelle Malkin: ‘Obamacare’ Is A Means To ‘Amnestizing’ ‘Border Jumpers’

Michelle Malkin appeared on Fox and Friends this morning promoting the hysterical claim that millions of “illegal lawbreakers, border jumpers, visa overstayers, and deportation fugitives” will be receiving health care because House Democrats decided to vote down an amendment to the health care bill proposed by Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV) that would have used immigration to drive yet another wedge into the volatile health care debate:

MALKIN: The democrat leaders are vehemently denying that the Obamacare would cover illegal lawbreakers, border jumpers, visa overstayers, deportation fugitives, but I think their actions speak louder than words…Remember that Obama at the same time has parallel plans to grant amnesty. And what you’re really seeing is that universal health care is being used as a vehicle, as a means to achieve other ideological and partisan ends. And one of those ends is amnestizing the entire illegal alien population so they can be guaranteed democrat voters in the future.

Watch it:

While Malkin and others are paranoid that Democrats are working towards greater “ideological and partisan ends,” it’s members of the GOP who are using every trick in the book to derail the health care bill and smear immigration reform before it even hits the floor. The Heller Amendment would have required each and every individual to prove his or her public health insurance or credit eligibility using the Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) programs. Dragging complex citizen verification systems from the immigration debate into health care reform and giving private insurance providers access to them would’ve forced Congress to address database errors, misuse, abuse and hammer out details on complaint and redress procedures, privacy protections, educational outreach, and increased funding.

Democrats are “vehemently denying” that America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 will cover undocumented immigrants because there’s specific language in the bill which excludes them. Secondly, though Malkin chooses to adamantly oppose comprehensive immigration reform and boil it down to “amnestizing,” the Obama administration and members of Congress have made clear that an electronic verification system and other enforcement measures must accompany any earned legalization program for undocumented immigrants.

Ultimately, the progressive’s “grand plan” involves an ambituous legislative agenda which seeks to remove barriers to quality health care and fix the broken immigration system through separate pieces of legislation because they are in fact two very different goals. The only thing that will actually “guarantee democrat voters” in the future is if the GOP continues to thwart progress on both issues in an effort to please its aging right-wing base.