"You Lie!"

During last night's speech, when President Obama said that illegal immigrants would not be covered by his proposed health care reform, Rep. Joe Wilson burst out with "You Lie!".

First, this was not appropriate behavior. There was enough of that during the Bush years.

But, what prompted Wilson's outburst? This is where things get tricky. The various health care bills do say that immigrants are not covered but there is no verification. In fact, Republicans have tried to add a verification requirement and the Democrats have rejected it. This means that illegal immigrants probably get coverage even if they are not entitled to it. Obama must know this so he was being disingenuous when he said that they would not be covered.

Obama was disingenuous about other facets of the bills. He continues to claim that early testing will cut costs and save lives. He is only half right there - it will raise costs. He has moderated his promise that the bills will not force individuals or their employers to change coverage but the new taxes and mandates in the bills will certainly force changes.

Regardless, the middle of the President's speech is not the time to argue fine points.

Update - I still think that this outburst was unseemly but it may turn out to be the point where Obama lost the health care debate. The evening news top story was about Wilson instead of Obama. The same thing happened in July when Obama gave a press conference that was mainly about health care but answered one question about a white cop arresting a black professor. Everyone forgot about the rest of the press conference. The same thing seems to be happening - Obama gave a prime-time speech which contained nothing new and was upstaged by two words from the gallery.

Wilson got some action, also. Democrats promised to include some enforcement language in the bills.