Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Kay on Squawk Box this morning...

Kay says the GOP has been shut out of the health care debate. Rick Dunham has the transcript (link). Video and excerpts follow...
CNBC: What do we do about illegal immigrants? You're from Texas, and you have a disproportionate challenge associated with illegal immigrants. What are your thoughts about whether or to what extent they ought to be covered by some type of health care plan no matter who's sponsoring it.

KBH: It's a very hard question. Illegal immigrants are treated in emergency rooms. So you're giving primary care at the most expensive rates in emergency rooms because they don't have coverage. That's why so many hospitals in Texas are struggling, and the taxpayers are paying for it through county funded hospitals. Yet you can't have a government-run health care plan that gives a benefit like this to illegal aliens. That's not right either. It's a very hard situation. And what we need to do is try to get a handle on illegal immigration by having a legal way to come in- a guest worker program- secure our borders better. These are the things that would help that situation. But the health care cost of illegal immigration is huge. 80% of the babies born in some of the hospitals in North Texas are for illegal aliens. So you've really just got a huge problem in that regard. Let me just say there are some answers to health care reform, and we need to be looking at positive ways to address the high cost and also to give small businesses an economical way to offer health care that could be offered by a private employer at a reasonable cost is the answer here to increase the number of insured and cut costs for everyone.

Thanks to Rick Dunham for posting the transcript and video.

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Hey now, campaign characters. Be nice. I know a lot of you on both sides, so I don't want any overly foul language, personal attacks on anyone other than the candidates themselves, or other party fouls. I will moderate the heck out of you if you start breaking the bounds of civility.