You know, it's actually worse than the righties here are saying. What's going unnoticed is how Brian Beutler has dissimulated in this very story. In the first paragraph. Here it is:

'By blurting "you lie" during the President's address, Wilson was insinuating--wrongly--that Democratic health care legislation would provide federal subsidies to undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance. But though Wilson's allegation was false...'

Beutler said that Wilson was talking about "federal subsidies to" (what he will not call, but who are) illegal aliens. That is false, and not just incidentally false.

Here's the actual sequence of words during Obama's speech:
[Obama:] "There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This true is false. The reforms I am proposing would not apply to illegal aliens." [Wilson:] "You lie."

Does this refer to "health care legislation... provid[ing] federal subsidies to undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance"? No. It refers to the plan applying to illegal aliens--which the public option WOULD DO, as it was when Obama spoke and had since drafted.

So why did Beutler say that Wilson was referring to federal subsidies for illegal aliens to buy health insurance? Because only on THAT matter could he say "Wilson's allegation was false," and say there was a "non-existent problem Wilson was complaining about."

HR 3200's Sec. 246 did contain language barring illegal aliens from getting the bill's subsidies for purchasing health care: "SEC. 246. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS. Nothing in this subtitle [Subtitle C] shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."

So what's the problem? Well, Sec. 221, which is in Subtitle B, establishes the "public health insurance option as an exchange-qualified health benefits plan." That subsection contains NO bar to illegal aliens' enrollment; it does NOT contain a provision barring illegals from enrolling in the public option program. And Sec. 246, which is in Subtitle C, does not apply to Subtitle B; as it states, it applies to the subtitle in which it is found, C.

Beutler had to go a ways to concoct this "lie" and "non-existent problem" for Wilson to be alleging; he had to do so because it was NOT what Wilson was alleging, and it was not the federal subsidy to buy insurance that Obama was speaking of when Wilson said "you lie." Obama was speaking of the program as a whole, not one small subsidy provision of it, and so was Wilson. Obama never mentioned affordability credits---the federal subsidies to purchase insurance that Beutler refers to---in his speech. Only Beutler says, and without any support or even plausibility, that Wilson's rebuke was about the federal subsidy. There is no support for, and no reason to believe, and no plausibility to, Beutler's statement that Wilson was referring to "federal subsidies to undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance." Beutler simply made that up. He did so because he needed something in the bill to which he could refer and about which he could say that "Wilson was wrong" and not be transparently wrong about himself. Since Beutler went to the length of creating a point for Wilson to be wrong about when neither Obama nor Wilson referred to the point nor can in any sense be plausibly said to have been referring to the point, it is inescapable: Beutler's mischaracterization is an intentional falsehood.

And Sec. 221 of HR-3200 does not in any way prohibit illegal aliens from enrolling in the public option. Joe Wilson was right, Obama was lying, and Brian Beutler in this story concocted a false rationale to enable himself to say Wilson was wrong, not Obama.

More proof? Okay, how's this: The Time story to which Beutler's article links does indeed talk about how "Baucus [intends] to insert a provision in his legislation to require participants in the health insurance exchanges to provide proof of citizenship." But then Beutler says, "Two things remain unclear. First is whether non-citizens would be barred, by this provision, from receiving federal subsidies, or entering the exchanges altogether. That's the difference between an inconvenience and actually barring undocumented residents from buying buying health insurance.

Actually neither of those things would be inherently unclear: The proof provision would be in Sec. 221; Sec. 246 already bars illegals from receiving subsidies (though it has no proof-of-citizenship requirement, and in practice would not be a bar at all). A proof-of-citizenship provision in Sec. 221, without a prohibition, can also be gotten around by the states' accepting such easily obtained yet non-probative ID as a driver's license or utility bill (which some states do now for federal programs which, consequently, illegally allow use by illegal immigrants). Each section could contain both the prohibitionary language of Sec. 246 and the proof-of-citizenship requirement that Baucus says he'll put in Sec. 221--and also require documentation that actually proves citizenship, as well as a search of a federal database that would authenticate. But that might actually stop illegals from getting coverage under the program--and that is not very likely the goal of the Democrats.

What's an "undocumented immigrant," anyway? I'm pretty sure the lack of documentation means that the immigrant has immigrated illegally, and, being a citizen of at least one other country, is an alien; thus one must conclude that an "undocumented immigrant" is an illegal alien.