Yeah, You're Here Legally, But, You Know, We're Still Not Gonna HELP You

Republicans in this country have a running joke between each other to see who can be the most cartoonishly evil while still keeping a straight face. It looks like we have a new champion, ladies and gents.

Aaron Serwer at American Prospect passes along this murderous little doozy:

"Last week, Mike Lillis caught a remarkable scene during the Senate Finance Committee debate: Republicans attempting to insert amendments that would bar legal immigrants -- you caught that, legal immigrants -- from accessing health-care exchanges, leaving those very immigrants Republicans say they are not hostile to, those who have "played by the rules" so to speak, without access to a reformed health-care system.
...
That would essentially make being in the country illegally a death sentence for someone who gets seriously ill. Kyl also memorably tried to prevent the federal government from requiring insurance companies to offer maternity care, because he himself "didn't need it.""

So, between that and treating spousal abuse as a pre-existing condition, we should all be pretty happy that the Democrats have been so excited to please Republicans and health insurance companies. It's called centrism, people, and it's the name of the game. See, there are two sides to every health care debate. On the one hand, you can treat health care as a human right that all people deserve, and on the other hand you can try to make a profit by denying care to beaten women and immigrants of all varieties. The Serious person, you see, finds the happy middle ground so as to never ever be called a leftist, which is FAR worse than being a xenophobic misogynist (fiscal conservative).

If there were any justos in el mundo, Sen. Kyl would be beaten mas o menos a la muerte with a sock full of pesos, and then denied "you-got-what-was-coming-to-you-because-you're-an-awful-Senator leave," because most Americans don't need that.