The estimable Ezra Klein clearly explains what is actually very simple to begin with. The Republicans, led by the Resident, are running on a pure, unadulterated lie about health care.
The protection for people with pre-existing conditions in the Affordable Care Act is very popular, for obvious reasons. People who have substantial health care needs really need health insurance, and before the ACA came along, a lot of them couldn't get it. But the Republicans have spent the past decade screaming and yelling that they need to repeal the ACA, and some of them are even suing to have the protections in the ACA ruled unconstitutional. Now, they are running ads claiming that they are committed to maintaining these protections -- even the very people who are suing to end them are making that claim. And the Resident tweets "Republicans will totally protect people with Pre-Existing Conditions, Democrats will not! Vote Republican."
Klein asks why they are lying like this instead of just adopting a policy of maintaining protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Well, before Obama was elected and proposed the ACA, they were actually for something very much like it, and it appeared that a bi-partisan compromise was possible. But when Mitch McConnell decided on the strategy of scorched earth opposition to everything Obama wanted to do, they had to abandon their previous proposals. The problem was that they didn't have anything else -- in order to provide insurance to people who have greater than average health care needs, you need an individual mandate. You have to get everybody into the pool.
So they were left with nothing, and all they can do is lie. Well, that's all they do anyway so it isn't actually news.
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2 comments:
Not to argue that this isn't obstructionism, but I see a bit more to it. They managed to score a few political points by removing the mandate, then created a false savings by killing the subsidy, the two parts that got the insurance parasites to buy in. Now their masters are demanding payback - killing the part they never liked to begin with. There is some degree of logic, really, as the latter was always unsustainable without the two former.
Of course, we have to remember that impoverishing the majority was the goal from the start.
Off subject, I really, REALLY like the new moderated comment format. I realize you may have to read a bunch of crap from a certain "anonymous" person, Cervantes, but I appreciate it. Sanity is being restored to your blog, as I want to see sanity restored to our country and the world. Think globally, act locally! Keep others' insanity from infecting our own.
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