Joe Wilson R-SC Voted to Provide Taxpayer Money for Illegal Immigrants' Healthcare
On Wednesday night, Rep. Joe Wilson [R, SC-2], shouted “You lie!” at President Obama when he said that the healthcare bill would not cover illegal immigrants. “The supporters of the government takeover of healthcare and liberals who want to give healthcare to illegals are using my opposition as an excuse to distract from the critical questions being raised about this poorly conceived plan,” Wilson said the next day in a campaign fundraising video.
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.
.....To be fair, Section 1011 is just a small part of a much larger bill that contained many Republican priorities. Still, Wilson’s protest against the current healthcare reform proposal giving coverage to illegal immigrants (which is false), is in direct contradiction to his 2003 vote. Allowing illegal immigrants to purchase unsubsidized healthcare through the Exchange that would be set up under the current proposal wouldn’t cost taxpayers a cent, and it would be a step towards fixing the problem that Section 1011 was designed to throw federal money at.
