Even Obama has stopped claiming “47 million uninsured Americans”

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Even Obama has stopped claiming “47 million uninsured Americans”

Thursday, September 10th, 2009 | Health Care |

Remember 10 million Americans, not 47 million, chronically uninsured?

As of last night’s speech even Obama has stopped using the 47 million number. Obama: I used to say 47 million uninsured. Now, it’s 30 million.

That’s an enormous concession. Now instead of claiming 1 in 6 Americans being chronically uninsured, Obama is claiming only 1 in 10. The real number is closer to 1 in 30, but this is progress.

One reason it isn’t 47 million is that that number includes illegal aliens, who wouldn’t be covered by a national health care program. Or would they?

The Democrats’ bill in the House, H.R. 3200, contains gaping loopholes that will allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded benefits. And these loopholes are no accident.

The legislation contains no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal immigrants do not apply for benefits. Republicans offered an amendment to close this loophole — it would have required verification using the existing methods that are already in place to verify eligibility for other federal benefits programs. But, when they were asked to put the language of the bill where their words were, in a party-line vote, House Democrats rejected the amendment to require verification and close this loophole.

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