Don't Confuse Our Politicians With The Facts

[desrt]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/26/1373436/-Republican-Congresswoman-gets-surprise-on-Facebook-after-asking-constituents-for-ACA-horror-stories?

"Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers posted an image on her official Facebook page, slamming the Affordable Care Act on the fifth anniversary of President Obama signing it into law. She asked constituents to share their Obamacare nightmare stories and well, the response probably wasn't what she expected. Below are a small sample of the comments constituents left on her page:


"My story is that I once knew 7 people who couldn't get health insurance. Now they all have it, thanks to the ACA and President Obama, and their plans are as good as the one my employer provides--and they pay less for them. Now, that's not the kind of story you want to hear. You want to hear made-up horror stories. I don't know anyone with one of those stories."

"I work for cancer care northwest. We actually have more patients with insurance and fewer having to choose treatment over bankruptcy. Cathy, I'm a die hard conservative and I'm asking you to stop just slamming Obamacare. Fix it, change it or come up with a better idea! Thanks"

"With Obamacare, I saved 300 bucks a month premium.. I have more coverage.. I like ObamaCare and can't wait til we go to the next step... Medicare for ALL."

"And now my daughter, diagnosed with MS at age 22, can have insurance. What do you plan to do with her?"

"My daughter is fighting for her life with stage 3 breast cancer! We are about to enter a second go round of diagnostic procedures and possibly more treatment after two full years of treatment! So yah! The ACA is more than helping! I resent that our rep thinks the only problems involve her personal story!"

"My whole family now has coverage. The ACA is the cause for this, I work in health care, I have seen the increase in covered patients first hand. The next step is universal coverage, this will truly lower costs and provide the best care. Cathy, you barely work, spend most of your time catering to special interests so you can be re-elected.. All while receiving a large wage and the best health insurance and care. Stop telling us how it doesn't work while enjoying your tax payer funded care and life."

"Instead of trying to repeal it why don't you improve it? Our local rural clinics are packed daily with people who have needed healthcare for years!! it is a godsend. It is pitiful this nation does not have healthcare for all and that doesn't mean the EMERGENCY room!!"

"Thanks to the ACA, my cousin was able to get affordable insurance despite her preexisting condition. So grateful.
I think we should repeal Obamacare, and replace it … with universal socialized medicine - like the rest of the industrialized nations of the world."

"Hello Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers!
I work as the facilitator of a task force that is overseeing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in Washington State. I have learned that the ACA is helping people who did not previously have health insurance get it. It is helping bring down medical costs. It is improving the quality of care. It is improving experiences of both patients and their families."

"I work with doctors, nurses, hospital and clinic managers, non-profit service providers, citizens-at-large. Each of them can site an improvement they would like to make to the Act. But whether they are Republican or Democrat, from urban or rural areas, powerful or not, they all say the ACA is working."

"Can't you and your Republican colleagues stop trying to repeal this Act and work to make it even more effective? Please?"

"Obama Care saved us when my husband was unemployed and we couldn't afford coverage. We might have been ruined without it. My husband could not have had the eye surgery needed after an accident. So grateful."

"We now have patients that can see a doctor in the clinic on time rather than waiting till they are too ill ACA is saving lives and you are too stupid to realize that. Get your political view out of the way and see what is happening in our community because you have shown again and again it is not your community. I see that your son has downs but not everyone in our community has it so get done with this supporting downs to the neglect of everything else."

"My plans are intact, premiums have increased as always, but what seems to be a lesser rate, my plan was not cancelled, I did not lose my doctor, I have not experienced reduced work hours, and it's actually freed me from the chains of employer based being the ONLY path to coverage. #FEARMONGER"




"Those are just a small sample of the hundreds or even thousands of comments left on her Facebook page. It is damn clear that her constituents are loving the Affordable Care Act. Will she take their comments to heart and abandon attempts to take insurance coverage away from her constituents?"

[brice1967]

I would have told the lady to go pound sand and mind her own business.  Does she go to grocery stores and newspapers when their weekly ads come out, advertising pork?  Forget that lady....

[Barb135]

I still say that for someone who is neither left nor right, dsert spends an awful lot of time/effort knocking down Republicans and propping up the Democrats and everything they stand for - very admirable to be so devoted...

I just read an article via FB this morning about a restaurant owner who was bullied by a Muslim woman into taking down his sign that merely advertised bacon for breakfast... Nobody asked her to eat it... he was just letting others know that it was available in his restaurant... He took the sign down, siting public safety... I'll have to try to find the link.  

[brice1967]

Kind of funny about Obamacare.  I know this gal who is probably the most ignorant republican I have ever met.  She constantly spews tea-party BS talking points.  

She embarked on this diatribe about how Obamacare was out to ruin her husband.  He is an entrepreneur and there is no way that he could be able to afford the premiums and that now he is going to have to pay the fines, which they can't afford either.  Here's the kicker....  he's insured through her work policy and when it comes to affordability, they are taking a 10 day Alaskan cruise.....  It'll be one of many vacations they take this year.  They go to Mardi Gras every year.  We caught them on a weekend getaway to Las Vegas.....  

It pisses me off to listen to someone like this.  I mean, if it were true, you'd hope a solution would be born because of this.... but she'd rather lie through her teeth just to keep hating Obama.  

I'm not defending Obama.  I'm putting her on the spot.  Don't say it if it isn't true.  TRUTH IN POLITICS.   We cant even get the truth from people outside of politics.

[Vance2335]

I wonder what will be said when a Muslim cater is told that he/she must serve pork? Will they deny the right of service and will the left stand up and defend the muslim?

[el_em_en_oh]

Okay, okay, we give. UNCLE.

The ACA is perfect.
Obama is a god among men.
Everything the Democrats do is amazing.
Hilary didn't do anything wrong.
Republicans are the devil.

We get it. No more convincing necessary.

Thank you.

[desrt]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pence-pins-need-indiana-religious-freedom-law-obamacare-n332926


Gov. Pence Pins Need for Indiana Religious Freedom Law on Obamacare

"Indiana Gov. Mike Pence swung back again Monday at critics of the state's controversial "religious freedom" law, writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that Obamacare had made it imperative to ensure that "religious liberty is fully protected under Indiana law."

Noting that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act — which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1993 — didn't apply to states, Pence argued in an article being published Tuesday that Indiana was only doing what 19 other states have done. And he stressed that Indiana's identically named law has nothing to do with limiting the rights of same-sex couples.

"I abhor discrimination. I believe in the Golden Rule that you should 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you,'" Pence wrote. "If I saw a restaurant owner refuse to serve a gay couple, I wouldn't eat there anymore."

Pence said his support for the law was driven by the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which he said "renewed concerns about government infringement on deeply held religious beliefs."

Pence cited a 2014 Supreme Court decision, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, to back up his argument. That ruling found that federal regulations requiring religious employers to provide their female employees with free access to contraception were unconstitutional.

"Indiana's new law contains no reference to sexual orientation," Pence wrote, adding: "As governor of Indiana, if I were presented a bill that legalized discrimination against any person or group, I would veto it."

Pence has gone on the offensive in the face of opposition from a wide array of social, cultural and business institutions that have accused Indiana of having given business owners license to discriminate against gay people and same-sex couples.

Sunday, Pence told ABC News that the backlash was fueled by "shameless rhetoric about my state and about this law and its intention."




"The devil made me do it"
Flip Wilson

[desrt]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/opinion/paul-krugman-imaginary-health-care-horrors.html


Imaginary Health Care Horrors

There’s a lot of fuzzy math in American politics, but Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, recently set a new standard when he declared the cost of Obamacare “unconscionable.” If you do “simple multiplication,” he insisted, you find that the coverage expansion is costing $5 million per recipient. But his calculation was a bit off — namely, by a factor of more than a thousand. The actual cost per newly insured American is about $4,000.

Now, everyone makes mistakes. But this wasn’t a forgivable error. Whatever your overall view of the Affordable Care Act, one indisputable fact is that it’s costing taxpayers much less than expected — about 20 percent less, according to the Congressional Budget Office. A senior member of Congress should know that, and he certainly has no business making speeches about an issue if he won’t bother to read budget office reports.

But that is, of course, how it’s been all along with Obamacare. Before the law went into effect, opponents predicted disaster on all levels. What has happened instead is that the law is working pretty well. So how have the prophets of disaster responded? By pretending that the bad things they said would happen have, in fact, happened.

Costs aren’t the only area where enemies of reform prefer to talk about imaginary disasters rather than real success stories. Remember, Obamacare was also supposed to be a huge job-killer. In 2011, the House even passed a bill called the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act. Health reform, opponents declared, would cripple the economy and in particular cause businesses to force their employees into part-time work.

Well, Obamacare went into effect fully at the beginning of 2014 — and private-sector job growth actually accelerated, to a pace we haven’t seen since the Clinton years. Meanwhile, involuntary part-time employment — the number of workers who want full-time work but can’t get it — has dropped sharply. But the usual suspects talk as if their dire predictions came true. Obamacare, Jeb Bush declared a few weeks ago, is “the greatest job suppressor in the so-called recovery.”

Finally, there’s the never-ending hunt for snarks and boojums — for ordinary, hard-working Americans who have suffered hardship thanks to health reform. As we’ve just seen, Obamacare opponents by and large don’t do math (and they’re sorry when they try). But all they really need are a few sob stories, tales of sympathetic individuals who have been impoverished by some aspect of the law.

Remarkably, however, they haven’t been able to find those stories. Early last year, Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers-backed group, ran a series of ads featuring alleged Obamacare victims — but not one of those tales of woe stood up to scrutiny. More recently, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington State took to Facebook to ask for Obamacare horror stories. What she got instead was a torrent of testimonials from people whose lives have been improved, and in some cases saved, by health reform.

In reality, the only people hurt by health reform are Americans with very high incomes, who have seen their taxes go up, and a relatively small number of people who have seen their premiums rise because they’re young and healthy (so insurers previously saw them as good risks) and affluent (so they don’t qualify for subsidies). Neither group supplies suitable victims for attack ads.

In short, when it comes to the facts, the attack on health reform has come up empty-handed. But the public doesn’t know that. The good news about costs hasn’t made it through at all: According to a recent poll by Vox.com, only 5 percent of Americans know that Obamacare is costing less than predicted, while 42 percent think the government is spending more than expected.

And the favorable experiences of the roughly 16 million Americans who have gained insurance so far have had little effect on public perceptions. Partly that’s because the Affordable Care Act, by design, has had almost no effect on those who already had good health insurance: Before the act, a large majority of Americans were already covered by their employers, by Medicare or by Medicaid, and they have seen no change in their status.

At a deeper level, however, what we’re looking at here is the impact of post-truth politics. We live in an era in which politicians and the supposed experts who serve them never feel obliged to acknowledge uncomfortable facts, in which no argument is ever dropped, no matter how overwhelming the evidence that it’s wrong.

And the result is that imaginary disasters can overshadow real successes. Obamacare isn’t perfect, but it has dramatically improved the lives of millions. Someone should tell the voters."

[brice1967]

Politicians and facts listed in the same sentence.  LOL, that was a good one.

[Vance2335]

If there is no dip in the stock market or economy. Big IF.

[desrt]

Thanks for the links, especially the reuters piece (remember, el' asked for facts, not LA Times op-ed).

Paying down unfunded debt, increasing cash reserves, improving bond rating, and investing more in education. Looks pretty grim.

[Vance2335]

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-retiree-health-liabilities-20141231-story.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/us-california-budget-idUSKCN0J32CT20141119

Not the rainbows and lollipops that it is made out to be.

[desrt]

California has been running a budget surplus in the billions the last few years.
Define 'bankrupt'.

http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2013/bud/fiscal-outlook/fiscal-outlook-112013.pdf

[el_em_en_oh]

CA is a financial success... simply saying it doesn't make it true.

CA is bankrupt, the last time I checked.

Where are you getting your information? Source please... (a reputable one, not www.barakobama.com please.

[desrt]

The Blue states like Minnesota and California that are currently financial successes will probably go on much as they are now. The 'supply side economics', 'jobs creators' states like Kansas and Texas will probably go back to using emergency rooms as primary healthcare for millions of people.

[Barb135]

Okay, so I went to her FB page and I gotta be honest - people really ARE singing praises to ACA...

But here's what I want to know - the Federal government is only going to subsidize for 3 years, then states are to take over the subsidies... since some of the states are right next to bankruptcy now, how are they going to do that, without increasing their state income taxes, sales taxes, etc?  

They can't - so is that when we sit back and watch the ACA implode?  Or will the Federal government step back in and take over the subsidies again?  Remember, we won't have Obama there to make some crazy executive decision and keep it going just on his say so...  

[Barb135]

You didn't really expect an article like that to print any of the horror stories, did you?  I've got several friends that could keep you up night with theirs.

[el_em_en_oh]

Now post all the horror stories.

Bet you dollars to donuts, the bad FAR outweighs the good.

Oh sure, there are instances where it's worked, but it's only worked for a precious few.

It's hurt more people than it's helped.

You can't simply say: "14 million Americans that didn't have insurance before, now do!" without your next sentence being: "however, it's hurt 20 million Americans in the process" and then showing how it's hurt.

Yes, the ACA has been a boon for those with NO insurance, I'll give you that. But let's talk about how many MORE people it;s hurt than helped.

I said it before the ACA even passed... yes, the ACA is a great idea, and I'm happy that there'll be American's getting insurance that didn't have access to insurance before. But at what cost???

BUT AT WHAT COST?

This country has become "the needs of the few outweight the needs & rights of the many", and it's because of Liberal Democrats that it's happened.

You cannot turn a blind eye to it, desrt...

[Vance2335]

Splended. Well done. Ignore real news and post this.