The US Senate health care bill closes the door on illegal immigrants but some claim there is a back entrance. The legislation from Majority Leader Harry Reid bars the undocumented from participating in health insurance exchanges, even if they pay full price with their own money.

Dave Gorak of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration says the system would still be ripe for fraud and abuse. He would favor a bill that utilizes the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE) to verify who is undocumented. He notes SAVE has long been used successfully by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

The Lavelle-based Gorak admits the Senate bill is better regarding immigration aspect than the House version. However he believes lawmakers are engaging in political posturing by only appearing to be tough on subsidized health care for illegal immigrants.

Dave Gorak (:19)

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The Senate legislation also draws a hard line on legal immigrants with a five-year waiting period for residents who are not citizens.

Opponents of the Senate’s exclusion in health reform cite immigrants pay taxes so they should enjoy the same benefits.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to lay out his Afghan strategy in a speech at West Point tonight, and an expert at the UW says he’s got his work cut out for him. Political scientist, professor Jon Pevehouse, thinks the Obama administration ought to be setting a low bar as far as what’s realistically achievable in Afghanistan. “The idea that we’re going to leave Afghanistan in the next five ten years, leaving it a functioning multi-party democracy is a pipe dream,” says Pevehouse. But he does see building stable local institutions as a reasonable goal for the U.S. “Getting a typical Afghani to really get behind and support local governance institutions, to try to make inroads to the Taliban.”

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