I'll tell you one thing: news travels FAST on the Internet, especially when it's nonsense. Yesterday I received an email from my beloved brother in law, a hopeless conspiracy theorist, regarding the President's so-called foreign birth. I actually read the whole thing out of curiosity, wondering what on earth NEW could have come out of this long-resolved foolishness. The answer: nothing. But the Web is full with regurgitated variations of the disproved allegations and a lot of folks are still rehashing the issue, facts be damned.
Same thing with health care reform. For the past few months I've had some pretty dynamic discussions with folks regarding the concept of a "national health care plan", which I initially championed but now am, candidly, less sure about. My belief that as a nation we MUST provide basic health care for those who need is unchanged, as is my belief that the current fraud-riddled public benefits abuse – i.e. Medicare and Medicaid – must be the first casualty of the status quo before true reform can begin.
But the latest assault on truth by the truly unenlightened comes from the predictable Center
for Immigration Studies, an innocently-named interest group which, in fact, exists exclusively to trigger anti-immigrant hysteria. Yesterday, these people claimed that under contemplated health care reform, millions of illegal aliens would receive U.S. subsidized health care paid for by, you guessed it, we the taxpayers. Never mind the fact that H.R. 3200 expressly bars unauthorized aliens from receiving federal subsidies toward health insurance. Never mind that existing laws AND the bills being considered in congress all feature proof of citizenship requirements. I'm sure Ol' Lou will spend his hour tonight on this non-issue.
Sigh.
The CIS, like other hatemongers disguised as "think tanks", etc., released this information not for the specific purpose of derailing health care reform (although they probably would love to do that as well.) It is just another feeble lie designed to foster the xenophobia to which they pander.
Advocacy based on fabrications and lies is not advocacy; it is what governments like Cuba and the PRC use to influence the masses. Shame on the CIS.
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