Universal Health Insurance Triage: Americans Will Queu Behind Illegals

Former Clinton political strategist Dick Morris is urging John McCain to make an issue of Barack Obama's intention to cover illegal aliens free under his universal health insurance plan. However, McCain is unlikely to do so, as he is ardently pursuing the Hispanic voting bloc.

O'S HEALTH RX: COVER ILLEGALS
By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann, New York Post

Democrats' single most important domestic proposal - universal health insurance - may blow up in Barack Obama's face when voters are exposed to the deadly details.

Obama has said, proudly and often, "I am going to give health insurance to 47 million Americans who are now without coverage." But are they "Americans?"

That 47 million statistic includes illegal immigrants - who virtually all lack insurance. In fact, about one in four of those lacking insurance is here illegally. And they are, by far, the group most in need of health insurance.

About 15 million of the remaining uninsured are eligible for Medicaid but haven't signed up - mainly because they haven't gotten sick. When they do, they enroll in Medicaid and we pick up the full tab for their health care relatively cheaply. (About 80 percent of each Medicaid dollar goes to nursing-home care for the elderly, only about 20 percent for the medical needs of the poor.)

The rest of the uninsured pool? Virtually all the children are eligible for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Some aren't enrolled because the parents haven't bothered, but most are eligible. That leaves about 20 million uninsured adults who are US citizens or legal immigrants. There are far better ways to handle their needs than to turn our entire health-care system upside down.

Care for illegals is the biggest unmet medical need in our nation, and Obama's program targets it squarely. But do we really want to give them federally paid coverage equal to what US senators get, as Obama proposes?


Covering illegals adds dramatically to the cost of any program - and would encourage more folks to enter America illicitly.

Obama's plan will likely have a horrific effect on some local health-care systems.

Illegals now get free emergency-room treatment for life-threatening conditions - as any other American who's entered an ER in an area with lots of illegals recently well knows. (Three-quarters of the illegal-immigrant population is concentrated in five states: California, New York, Florida, Texas and Illinois.)

But now they'd be eligible for the entire range of medical services, all free of charge. That would trigger severe rationing: bureaucrats deciding who gets to see an oncologist, who can have an MRI - and even who can have bypass surgery and who'd die for lack of it.

These decisions would be made not on the basis of legal status but on the brutal facts of triage: Treat the 37-year-old illegal with his whole life to live before you spend scarce resources on an overweight, diabetic, 80-year-old citizen with high blood pressure who smokes.

John McCain hasn't raised this issue, perhaps for fear of offending the Latino vote. But polling suggests the case against rationing of health care would be as persuasive to Hispanic-American citizens as it is to the rest of us. Nobody wants to die waiting in line - especially not behind someone who snuck in ahead of us.

McCain needs to hit the Obama plan for treating illegal immigrants to free, federally subsidized health insurance - and hit it hard.

Invasion Protest at Denver Planned, Budgeted by Sovereignty Activists

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) has announced plans for a "massive pro-American, pro-sovereignty, pro-border security, anti-illegal immigration rally" at the Democrat National Convention next month.

They hope to get their anti-illegal immigration message across to 15,000 reporters there, in addition to an estimated 20,000 others, including delegates, alternates and elected officials.

The Convention will be held August 25-28 in Denver, Colorado.

"This will be one of the biggest meetings of pro-amnesty, pro-illegal alien politicians in a long, long time," write the Minutemen, "all eager to push their agenda against American sovereignty in front of fifteen thousand reporters and their television cameras from across the country."

The sovereignty activists predict that the politicians will pander "to the open borders special interest groups, like La Raza and MALDEF, for a whole week."

The national Minuteman organization is "teaming up with local activists on the ground in Denver to stage this huge rally," it reported in a fundraising letter, "which will feature dozens of prominent speakers and leaders in the fight for border security. We've secured a location at a large park near the Pepsi Center where 35,000 people will be attending the convention.

"Our allies on the ground in Denver are putting the final details in place for a rally on the first day of the convention, plus more protests, pickets, counter-protests, media blitzes, and more the rest of the week."

The Minutemen have committed five thousand dollars to initial expenses, and expect the overall event to come in under $15,000, according to the fundraising letter.

"That's amazing, especially with having to cover application fees, the park fee, damage deposits to the city, off-duty police security, portable stages, power generators, property insurance, port-a-potties, waste bins, sound systems, and even shuttle buses that will travel between the park and a designated commuter lot to prevent traffic and parking problems."

DOJ Collaborates with ACLU on Trafficking Policy

Human trafficking is probably the most troubling aspect of mass, uncontrolled immigration, whether illegal or fully documented. Yet the anti-trafficking constituency is feeble, underfunded, and preoccupied with other issues.

Opposing human trafficking is almost entirely an altruistic project. There's no financial windfall involved, and there are no fat cats willing to underwrite it like California Agriculture does for Mexican labor.

In the end, even public servants in the Department of Justice have no stomach for defending the defenseless, as Paul Weyrich writes below in a TownHall.com column. The young women and children forced into prostitution on the fruited plain are dismissed as collateral damage.

They are, arguably, analogous to unborn children: they can't protest, they can't organize, they can't litigate, they can't vote; therefore they don't matter. And the American Civil Liberties Union is their deadliest adversary.


The Fight to Abolish Human Trafficking Within the United States
by Paul Weyrich

Without doubt the Federal appointee who was most effective dealing with sex-trafficking was former Representative John R. Miller (R-WA). President George W. Bush has sought to end sex slavery within the United States and provide international leadership on the issue. Miller was appointed Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons for the U.S. State Department and became an Ambassador-at-large on the issue of modern slavery. Miller elevated the fight to a high priority in the Bush Administration.

Recently, Miller wrote an op-ed in The New York Times which suggested that the effort to oppose sex slavery has met opposition in the Department of Justice (DOJ). Miller also made a presentation to a group with which I am involved. Upon hearing Miller's presentation I realized that the situation is worse than he described in The New York Times.

After nurturing the 21st-Century abolitionist movement from 2002 to 2006, Miller believed that President Bush supported him despite objection to his efforts from numerous Ambassadors who did not want their host countries criticized. Miller stated that the President made it clear that his work was important. While he did not win every battle, he prevailed, often thanks to White House support.

One could imagine Miller's surprise when he learned that DOJ initiated a campaign to oppose a new Congressional bill which would strengthen the Federal Government's anti-trafficking efforts. In a 13-page letter, DOJ blasted nearly every aspect of the proposed legislation. In its annual report which rates how well countries are combating sex slavery, DOJ does not want to consider whether governments put traffickers in jail, nor does it want the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to streamline their efforts to help the victims of sex-trafficking acquire visas and assistance. DOJ does not want to pool data with the Departments of State, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services on sex-trafficking and to devise prevention strategies.

DOJ opposes the creation of Presidential awards for groups leading the struggle against this modern-day slavery. It is against a citizens' task force to develop a pamphlet for victims. It does not want the State Department to give the telephone numbers of American anti-trafficking organizations to visa applicants at American Consulates worldwide.

Miller believes the vehement opposition by DOJ to this proposed legislation goes far beyond the usual turf battle which usually rears its ugly head in Washington, D.C. Miller states that DOJ opposes changes which would expand its own authority to combat trafficking. For example: Should they prosecute American tourists who create the demand for sex-trafficking in foreign countries? Should Congress provide increased penalties for Americans who sexually abuse children abroad? Should American jurisdiction extend to Americans who traffic human beings aboard? Should the Attorney General include information in his annual report on his department's efforts to enforce anti-trafficking laws against federal contractors and employees? No, it should not do any of these.

Miller believes this letter is the product of the mostly male DOJ staff working with the Erotic Service Providers Union and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He does not believe the President saw or approved the 13-page letter. In the House of Representatives there is a Caucus on Human Trafficking, co-chaired by Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Debbie Price (R-OH). They have been trying to coordinate a meeting with the President but have been unsuccessful. Regardless of one's opinion of President Bush, it is impossible to dismiss his sincerity and determination on such issues. I am willing to wager that this letter went to Capitol Hill without his approval. There is time for President Bush to reverse this injustice.


Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation.

Daughter of Immigrants Denounces National Council of La Raza

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin has called the National Council of La Raza out in this recent column published on the Town Hall site. Malkin is, herself, the daughter of Filipino immigrants. Like Michelle Obama, she is an Ivy Leaguer.

15 Things You Should Know About "The Race"
By Michelle Malkin

Only in America could critics of a group called "The Race" be labeled racists. Such is the triumph of left-wing identity chauvinists, whose aggressive activists and supine abettors have succeeded in redefining all opposition as "hate."

Both Barack Obama and John McCain will speak this week in San Diego at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the Latino organization whose name is Spanish for, yes, "The Race." Can you imagine Obama and McCain paying homage to a group of white people who called themselves that? No matter. The presidential candidates and the media have legitimized "The Race" as a mainstream ethnic lobbying group and marginalized its critics as intolerant bigots. The unvarnished truth is that the group is a radical ethnic nationalist outfit that abuses your tax dollars and milks PC politics to undermine our sovereignty.

Here are 15 things you should know about "The Race":

15. "The Race" supports driver's licenses for illegal aliens.

14."The Race" demands in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students that are not available to law-abiding U.S. citizens and law-abiding legal immigrants.

13. "The Race" vehemently opposes cooperative immigration enforcement efforts between local, state and federal authorities.

12. "The Race" opposes a secure fence on the southern border.

11. "The Race" joined the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in a failed lawsuit attempt to prevent the feds from entering immigration information into a key national crime database -- and to prevent local police officers from accessing the data.

10. "The Race" opposed the state of Oklahoma's tough immigration-enforcement-first laws, which cut off welfare to illegal aliens, put teeth in employer sanctions and strengthened local-federal cooperation and information sharing.

9. "The Race" joined other open-borders, anti-assimilationists and sued to prevent Proposition 227, California's bilingual education reform ballot initiative, from becoming law.

8. "The Race" bitterly protested common-sense voter ID provisions as an "absolute disgrace."

7. "The Race" has consistently opposed post-9/11 national security measures at every turn.

6. Former "Race" president Raul Yzaguirre, Hillary Clinton's Hispanic outreach adviser, said this: "U.S. English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks." He was referring to U.S. English, the nation's oldest, largest citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. "The Race" also pioneered Orwellian open-borders Newspeak and advised the Mexican government on how to lobby for illegal alien amnesty while avoiding the terms "illegal" and "amnesty."

5. "The Race" gives mainstream cover to a poisonous subset of ideological satellites, led by Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA). The late GOP Rep. Charlie Norwood rightly characterized the organization as "a radical racist group … one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West."

4. "The Race" is currently leading a smear campaign against staunch immigration enforcement leaders and has called for TV and cable news networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves -- in addition to pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut up their foes. The New York Times reported that current "Race" president Janet Murguia believes "hate speech" should "not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights."

3. "The Race" sponsors militant ethnic nationalist charter schools subsidized by your public tax dollars (at least $8 million in federal education grants). The schools include Aztlan Academy in Tucson, Ariz., the Mexicayotl Academy in Nogales, Ariz., Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School in St. Paul, Minn., and La Academia Semillas del Pueblo in Los Angeles, whose principal inveighed: "We don't want to drink from a White water fountain, we have our own wells and our natural reservoirs and our way of collecting rain in our aqueducts. We don't need a White water fountain … ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction."

2. "The Race" has perfected the art of the PC shakedown at taxpayer expense, pushing relentlessly to lower home loan standards for Hispanic borrowers, reaping millions in federal "mortgage counseling" grants, seeking special multimillion-dollar earmarks and partnering with banks that do business with illegal aliens.

1. "The Race" thrives on ethnic supremacy -- and the elite sheeple's unwillingness to call it what it is. As historian Victor Davis Hanson observes: "[The] organization's very nomenclature 'The National Council of La Raza' is hate speech to the core. Despite all the contortions of the group, Raza (as its Latin cognate suggests) reflects the meaning of 'race' in Spanish, not 'the people' -- and that's precisely why we don't hear of something like 'The National Council of the People,' which would not confer the buzz notion of ethnic, racial and tribal chauvinism."

The fringe is the center. The center is the fringe. Viva La Raza.