I think that anyone should be allowed to buy insurance. But if the bill allowed unauthorized* immigrants to purchase insurance, then the Republicans would all be up in arms.

Weak statement.. the Republicans are already up at arms about the bill. Not explicitly blocking illegals from buying insurance despite their cost on the system will not change that..

I don’t understand why we want to exclude people who could contribute to the system.

Simple, and I said before. This bill is not about reducing costs.. it is about increasing insurance company profits by increasing the number of people paying in. It is an insurance company gimme.

* I prefer the word unauthorized immigrant rather than illegal or undocumented. It’s a more precise term, I believe.

Actually it isn’t many of them have no intent of becoming naturalized (they are supporting the rest of their family back home and would not go to the US if they could get a paying job in Mexico). I would say unauthorized non-citizen, or unauthorized alien would be more accurate if you are trying to ‘slant’ the statement while trying to be accurate. They are in the country illegally though, so by being unauthorized, they are also here illegally..

No brian – I mean under the bill, citizens are required to buy health insurance and immigrants are not required.

Actually, what I saw had them explicitly banned from buying health insurance.