Friday 8 November 2013

Who really wrecked the Obamacare rollout?

THE GUYS WHO REALLY WRECKED OBAMACARE. READ ON!


We’ve heard a lot of hollering about the terrible job the Democrats did with the Obamacare rollout.

Um, no. Not so fast.

How about the Republicans, who refused to appropriate money to fund the construction of the website? Is anybody going to hold them accountable?

How about the Republicans, who massively multiplied the traffic plowing into the Obamacare website by blocking state marketplaces and resisting Medicaid expansion?

How about the Republicans, whose government shutdown took HHS employees off the Obamacare rollout the day it opened? For two weeks?

How about the Republicans, who passed rules preventing professionals from guiding customers through the enrollment process?

How about Darrell Issa, who has been caught lying about the predicted traffic capacity of the Obamacare website, claiming the White House lied about the capacity? Elijah Cummings, who has an admirable track record of shooting down Issa’s endless lies about non-scandals, busted Issa again.

How about the people who came up with the basic tenets of Obamacare – Republicans? Paying private insurers instead of going direct to the medical people and patients, more state activity, means testing – rather than a simple single-payer system? Keep that in mind, because Republicans want to do the same to Social Security and Medicare, to make them work like the ACA.

How about the insurers who have been caught sending scary letters to customers about Obamacare cancelling their coverage?

How about the insurers who have been lying to them about the benefits of Obamacare?

And the insurers pulling out of some markets?

And the insurers lying to customers to lock them into expensive policies before they found out how much Obamacare would save them?

Insurers cancelling policies because they don’t offer full coverage, and then blaming Obamacare?

And the insurers cancelling policies because they want to make new insurance plans that are illegal under Obamacare – and then blaming Obamacare?

How about Blue Cross, which has already been caught lying to their customers, incorrectly telling them their policies are being cancelled rather than grandfathered in? They lied so they could convince people to lose their “grandfathered” policies forever and switch them to new plans. And then they blamed Obamacare.

How about the rightwing media outlets who have been peddling nonsense about a “marriage tax”? This was debunked, but not before CNN breathlessly reported it to its viewers as fact.

And by the way, how about even the mainstream media outlets, who refused to do anything to help people understand the program? And then whined that it’s not the media’s job to separate the truth from the falsehoods? If that isn’t the job of the press, what is? Since when is the press unable or unwilling to call political liars….liars?

We’re going to lose the Obamacare battle just like we lost the public option battle in 2010, and the House later that year – because no one is combating the lies or placing the blame in the proper places.

~HP


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