The Character of Our Country……You Lie!
Posted by realityrounds on September 9, 2009
Yes, I listened to the President of the United States speech on healthcare reform. I am a nurse, and this is close to my heart and soul. There are over 30 million human beings without any form of health care insurance in this country. Recent studies have shown that up to 40% of insurance claims are denied by some insurance companies in states such as California. American citizens with paid in to health insurance are dying because they are sick and the insurance companies are refusing them treatment. If nothing is done, healthcare costs will bankrupt this country, all sides agree on this.
It is time for intelligent, truthful, painful conversations and solutions on healthcare. Not scare tactics and fringe antics from either side. That does a disservice to everyone.
During the President of the United States speech in front of the Joint Sessions of Congress, I can honestly say I was ashamed and embarrassed by what I heard. In a speech meant to convey the seriousness of healthcare reform for all American citizens, a speech meant for adults to ponder the pros and cons of how to help our fellow Americans, a Republican congressman from South Carolina, Joe Wilson, yells out to the President of the United States,…..”YOU LIE!”
Joe Wilson, THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING. God forbid you lose your re-election seat in Congress, and lose your primo health insurance. A juvenile, immature, disrespectful response.
RR
tisheli said
I like how the representative sitting next to him is leaning off to the side as if to say, “I’m not with him.”
pinky said
I was watching last night. I thought I imagined that. Because it is really in bad taste to heckle the President. I thought I must be imagining it. Wow, just wow. How can a grow man do that?
Kathy said
Is there going to be some way to verify that people are in this country legally? I mean, supposedly, people have to present Social Security numbers or some other valid ID before they are allowed to work, yet we know that there are millions of illegal immigrants working in the United States. They get around the law somehow — probably most of them with fake identification, although certainly some employers will knowingly employ illegal aliens. What’s to keep them from presenting false identification to get health care?
realityrounds said
Kathy,
The point of the post was how unbelievably rude and uncivil this congressman was. Calling the president of the United States a liar during a joint session of congress is disgusting. Trust me, I would feel the same way if a democrat yelled at George Bush and called him a liar before the build up to the Iraq war, on the Senate floor. They can save that kind of rhetoric for TV news shows.
I posted once on how the government is working on anti medical identity theft. I will look for the post to link.
Kathy said
I agree it was rude. But I remember other Presidents — of both parties — getting booed at and hissed at, along with getting standing ovations from their own parties while the other party grimly sat in their chairs. Also rude. But was it inaccurate? Politi-fact rates the statement as half-true. Just fwiw.
realityrounds said
Booing and hissing is one thing, yelling out “YOU LIE” during a speech by the POTUS at the joint sessions of congress is pathetic and desperate. Wilson’s political career is over for it.
Polit-fact rated Wilson’s statement as FALSE: “We rate Wilson’s statement False.”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/09/joe-wilson/joe-wilson-south-carolina-said-obama-lied-he-didnt/
R. May said
If people want to commit fraud they are going to do it no matter what. Young, old, poor, rich, legal and illegal people from all walks of life do it.
Most of the illegals who are working are doing so without the proper paperwork – employers essentially hire them under the table.
I have a friend in Maine (native us citizen) who just put her kids on the state program and she had a hard time providig everything they requested for proof of legal status. Some may slip through but for the most part I think that for states who have already adopted the measures it works fairly well.
Cloud said
Kathy- I hear the concern about illegal immigrants a lot. I honestly don’t think we need to worry about this. As someone who has lived almost all of her life in one of the border states (AZ and CA)- I see no evidence that most illegal aliens are trying to access anything other than a paycheck. They are afraid to draw attention to themselves and avoid any situation where they come into contact with authorities, and this includes the hospital. It is actually a bit of a public health problem on rare occasions, in that we can get outbreaks of infectious disease spreading in a group that is afraid to get the disease treated and thereby stop the spread. I don’t think illegal immigrants will be rushing to sign up for any health care plan we put in place. If a few do, and manage to commit the fraud necessary to get health care, I still think that is an acceptable trade off to guarantee that all people in this country legally can afford to get health care. I’d rather let a few people cheat us than continue to allow hard-working Americans AND THEIR CHILDREN to go without access to decent health care.
Things have changed a lot on the border. People crossing the border now risk their lives. I really don’t think anyone is going to risk their life to get across the border just to access our medical system. I see some examples of wealthier Mexicans choosing to come here to San Diego for care, but they come legally and they pay. And I see LOTS of examples of Americans crossing the border to Mexico to access their cheaper drugs, and in some cases, their cheaper doctors.
(Reality Rounds- I’ve been lurking on your blog for awhile. I stumbled across it while looking for information to help me prepare for the birth of my second child. Thanks for being one of the few blogs out there writing rationally about birth options! Most sites are so rabid in their views that they are not helpful at all.)
Kim said
I also grew up on a border state (NM). My sister is a nurse. From her experience illegals don’t come here to get health care per se, but they do take humongous amounts of resources by coming into the emergency rooms and not paying for it. The ER is required to treat them no matter what. If they can’t pay they don’t. They don’t get health care as in insurance or anything, but they aren’t afraid to use our hospitals resources through ER services either. ER expenses can be grossly under compensated and hospitals can and do go bankrupt over it. Plus they don’t pay the taxes to balance out their usage. That’s why illegals are a burden on our health care. Not because they’re getting a plan and going to a practitioner.
Before you burn me at the stake, we cause problems too. Another reason includes our immense fear of death. I know of an 85 year old lady who had a heart transplant. Why? She had other health problems as well but just felt like she had to do EVERY single thing possible to stay alive as long as she could even though quality of life wasn’t very good. I know it’s not my place to judge whether someone wishes to prolong life or not. People should make their own choice in that matter. But it is also expensive and if that’s what they want they should be willing to pay the price for it in higher taxes or in their own insurance plans.
I know I might get flamed for this post…but from experience these two things really don’t help our situation. Of course we’re going to have higher taxes and health care costs because of them.
realityrounds said
Cloud,
Thanks
Kathy said
Cloud,
Just clarifying — there are 12-20 million illegal aliens already in the United States (according to Wikipedia — I don’t feel like finding any better number, so we’ll just go with that). What is to prevent them from getting on this system? From what I’ve read — nothing. Except their keeping a low profile, as you mentioned. Someone above mentioned having the system set up so that it is difficult to be approved — I see nothing like that in any discussion of any of the various bills floating around Washington. Of course, I haven’t read them all, either. But the point is, what safeguards are there to keep people who are breaking the law just by living in this country will be prevented from gaining access to health insurance? None, so far as I can tell. It appears to be a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. So, it’s not exactly a true statement to say that illegal aliens cannot or will not be able to have this health insurance extended to them, even without jumping through a lot of hoops.
When I was working in the Chicago area, some of my coworkers talked in a matter-of-fact way about how there was a well-established method for illegal aliens to get false documentation that allowed them to work “legally” — for a nominal fee ($50, I think), they could get a Social Security card and whatever else they needed. And they could use that for health insurance, too, I daresay. Whether or not a small or large percentage of 12-20 million illegal immigrants will try to get on the insurance is actually beside the point of the discussion, as far as I’m concerned. The point is merely, what safeguards will there be?
Lest you think I’m a hard-hearted b*tch, or racist, or whatever, I’m not. I worked at a pharmacy for 6+ years, and during that time, the Hispanic population in my area grew dramatically — from practically zero to a significant (but still small) percentage. I figure that a lot of those people were here illegally. It was difficult to explain the medication usage to the bilingual 4-y/o to translate to her mother. I worried that it might not be right. I learned Spanish, as well as I could, especially as much pharmacy lingo as I could, so that I could more easily communicate with these people who couldn’t speak English. And whom I assumed to be illegal. I set up the system so that my coworkers could type the labels in Spanish, even though they didn’t know Spanish. Because I wanted them to be safe and take the medicine correctly, since as an individual and a private citizen it wasn’t my concern whether they were legal or not.
SW said
Well hallelujah, Kathy! You DO have a heart–aw, you learned Spanish for the illiegal aliens (FYI: No one uses the word “alien” anymore. It’s considered to be in poor taste and heartless. And since you’re on your heartfelt path–it’s better to say something that defines them more as human beings, perhaps “people who are in the U.S. illegally”). So there you go again, fearful of possible outcomes–fear of what might happen is a depressing, hopeless place to be. Do you ever feel hopeful?
Kathy said
Hmmm… let’s see… the dictionary defines “alien” as “someone not from your country; a foreigner”… and “illegal” means “prohibited by law”… put ‘em together, and we’ve got “someone not from my country in a manner prohibited by law.” I don’t see why it’s considered heartless to call a spade a spade.
Your reply pisses me off. I didn’t have to learn Spanish. I didn’t have to help the Spanish-speaking “people who are in the U.S. illegally”. I could have been like a whole lot of other people who say, “They’re in America, they need to speak English!” and refuse to move one whit out of their way to help another. I could have let them think that “once” was the Spanish word “eleven” and have them overdose when the medication was for “once daily”. I could’ve done a lot less than I did, and your reply makes me mad that going out of my way, spending hours after work memorizing Spanish words and phrases, making up lists, putting stuff in the computer, writing out tons of stuff, so that I could HELP people, is looked down.
You don’t know me at all. Yet you judge me. How dare you?
Cloud said
Well, the house version of the bill explicitly forbids extending a government subsidy to illegal immigrants. It will be up to the executive branch to figure out how to enforce that- I wouldn’t expect to see the method of such a thing spelled out in legislation, since enforcement of laws is the domain of the executive. I would expect that anti-immigration groups such as the Minutemen would sue to ensure enforcement if they thought it was not being achieved.
As Kim mentions above, illegal immigrants can currently get treatment in ERs, which is a hugely inefficient way to provide health care. So from the standpoint of minimizing US taxpayer money spent on health care for illegal immigrants, bringing them into the system would probably be the best approach. Actually, coming up with a sane immigration policy would probably be the best approach. I do not expect to see either of these things happen.
You can read CNN’s fact check on the claim about the bill covering illegal immigrants if you want. They conclude that this is a false concern:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/27/cnn-truth-squad-will-health-bill-pay-for-illegal-immigrants-an-update/
Regardless, Reality Rounds’ original point that heckling the president during a speech to congress was inappropriate is a good one. How can we hope for sane, civil discourse if a congressman feels free to heckle the president in such a setting?
Ben said
Kathy,
The dictionary also defines alien as:
“Dissimilar, inconsistent, or opposed, as in nature.”
“A person who is not included in a group; an outsider.”
“A creature from outer space.”
These definitions are used to dehumanize actual human beings in the whole health care debate. Using the term “alien” to describe another human being is the same old propaganda used in history to make others seem inhuman, and thus deny them any sort of human care and emotion. Stating you learned Spanish out of the goodness of your heart, out of one side of your mouth, but also stating out of the other side of your mouth that you are worried about the “illegal aliens” getting on the system? Sounds very disingenuous. Kind of like the old lame argument that you are not a racist because you have a black friend!
It did not seem like SW was judging you Kathy, as surely as you are not judging the “illegal aliens” for trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.
Honestly, this whole illegal immigrant issue in health care reform is a red herring.
mamamia said
Except for the flying shoe, which was thrown by someone from another country, I can’t think of another incident so disrespectful to any standing President of either party. This is a disgusting public display showing, yet again, why people elsewhere are losing(have lost) any respect for our country.
Kathy, I am at a loss of words at your apparent dislike of people other than your kind.
mamamia said
Joe Wilson Voted To Provide Taxpayer Money For Illegal Immigrants’ Healthcare
From Huffington post:
However, in 2003, Wilson voted to provide federal funds for illegal immigrants’ healthcare. The vote came on the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, which contained Sec. 1011 authorizing $250,000 annually between 2003 and 2008 for government reimbursements to hospitals who provide treatment for uninsured illegal immigrants. The program has been extended through 2009 and there is currently a bipartisan bill in Congress to make it permanent.
Kathy said
I am at a loss of words at your apparent dislike of people other than your kind.
Just because you read into my words more than I meant to say does not mean that I dislike people “other than my kind.” Last time I checked, we were all the human kind.