There was one moment during the Democrats\u2019\ntwo-night debate-a-thon which demonstrated the degree to which the party has\nveered to the left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was no surprise that President Trump\u2019s\nsignature issue of immigration would be a hot topic given both the media and\nthe presidential candidates believe it is his Achilles\u2019 heel and one which he\nis out of step with American opinion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then NBC News reporter Savannah\nGuthrie stepped forward to ask one question that could change the direction of\nthe race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRaise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants,\u201d Guthrie asked the candidates<\/a> Thursday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All excitedly raised their hands, except\nfor former Vice President Joe Biden whose position was briefly in doubt.\nGuthrie clarified that he would give illegal immigrants health care coverage if\nelected and then explained his position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden said his plan<\/a> would cover illegal aliens because \u201cyou cannot let people who are sick, no matter where they come from, no matter what their status, go uncovered,\u201d and then added that insuring millions of illegal immigrants would help reduce the \u201coverall cost of health care by them being able to be treated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the heated and hyperbolic rhetoric on\nimmigration that has come from the Democrats since the 2016 election, the\nresponse from the top-tier presidential candidates was unsurprising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But, it is worth revisiting where the Democratic Party\nwas just three years ago to get a real sense of how far out of the mainstream\nthey are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During the 2016 Democratic presidential primary\ndebates, Hillary Clinton and then-Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont\nboth confirmed their support for allowing illegal aliens to purchase health\ninsurance through Obamacare, but refused to go any further than that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of proposals to permit low-income legal or illegal immigrants receive tax credits to help pay their insurance premiums, the Wall Street Journal <\/a><\/em>noted<\/a>, \u201cwould be a much more far-reaching step \u2013 one that\u00a0Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders have now made clear that they can’t support.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sanders, who was on the stage Thursday night, has\nofficially become a Democrat and officially switched his stance of giving\nillegal aliens health care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, it was just a decade when President Obama rolled out his health care reform plan during a Joint Session of Congress and insisted<\/a> that \u201cthose who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants\u201d were not telling the truth. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe reforms — the reforms I’m proposing would not\napply to those who are here illegally,\u201d continued Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statement drew the infamous and heavily-criticized response \u2013 \u201cYou Lie\u201d -from Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who would apologize for the outburst, which turned out to be right<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was not the first time Obama had publicly countered\nclaims that his health care proposal would allow illegal aliens to get health\ncare coverage. In fact, the administration had been on a media campaign\ndisputing Republican claims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In an August 2009 radio interview<\/a>, Obama characterized as \u201cmisinformation\u201d the notion of illegal immigrants getting health care. Yes, Obama used the now-prohibited phrase \u201cillegal immigrants\u201d in a prime time speech delivered from the well of the House of Representatives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis has been an example of just pure misinformation\nout there. None of the bills that have been voted on in Congress, and none of\nthe proposals coming out of the White House propose giving coverage to illegal\nimmigrants \u2014 none of them. That has never been on the table; nobody has\ndiscussed it. So everybody who is listening out there, when you start hearing\nthat somehow this is all designed to provide health insurance to illegal\nimmigrants, that is simply not true and has never been the case,\u201d asserted the\npresident. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After a follow up, Obama again noted that \u201cnobody has\ntalked about providing health insurance to illegal immigrants. I want to make\nthat absolutely clear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, an opinion piece in the <\/a>New Yorker<\/a><\/em> came to the defense of Obama from those on the left who were arguing the United States should embrace universal coverage like Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGiven that we\u2019re in the middle of a huge struggle just to get the U.S. close to where European countries already are in terms of the universality of insurance, it seems a bit much to ask that we should go far beyond what those countries are doing, and extend insurance to literally anyone who makes it across the border,\u201d argued author James Surowiecki. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He went on to make the case that \u201coffering insurance to anyone who comes to the U.S. would obviously create all kinds of complicated incentives for people to migrate here when they were sick, particularly since no other major industrial democracy offers insurance for illegal immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n His point was echoed in a 2009 article<\/a> in the Atlantic<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSince no other industrialized democracy offers health\ncare for illegal residents, we could be flooded with requests from workers\nmigrating to the States whenever they got sick,\u201d wrote Derek Thompson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But today\u2019s Democrats and liberal media elite are different than way back a decade ago. They see health care as a right and the United States as inhumane and backward for not forcing American taxpayers to finance the health care of illegal immigrants. Then there are lots of cruel nations because Thailand is the only nation which gives full coverage<\/a> to migrants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, while Democrats argue that they are not in favor\nof \u201copen borders\u201d and \u201csocialism,\u201d a picture of candidates with their hands\nraised says more than a thousand words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There was one moment during the Democrats\u2019 two-night debate-a-thon which demonstrated the degree to which the party has veered to the left. It was no surprise that President Trump\u2019s signature issue of immigration would be a hot topic given both the media and the presidential candidates believe it is his Achilles\u2019 heel and one which<\/p>\n