GREEN Reactor: ObamaScare
We’re past Halloween, but judging by the on-going Obamacare fright-fest, you’d never know it. And it’s not only the standard Teapublican-beholden claptrap from Faux News. 
Catch CNN or other network coverage — even the late-night comedians – and you’d be hard-pressed not to conclude that Obamacare had become ObamaScare. So much so that all more serious issues of trashing the economy and ruining our country’s debt rating – issues that are still on the table with a short fuse, have totally dropped off the radar.
Which is exactly the point… After their abject failure to tie Obamacare to the budget and the credit ceiling, the Teapublicans were bestowed with a mighty gift to keep their drive alive. On a silver platter they were served a plate of maximum distraction for the masses. The Obamacare people had committed the most visible of sins. They invited the masses to take a ride on their vehicle – their portal website – a vehicle that even non-technical observers THINK they can speak authoritatively about. And that vehicle was defective. The horror!
It was a godsend – now they could turn the valiant knightly image (as seen by so many) of Obamacare on its head, and get sympathy even from its defenders. All they had to do was pretend that – being just another website like everyone deals with every day – putting it together should have been easy. And since the Obamacare team couldn’t accomplish a clean launch, by implication they couldn’t handle Obamacare either. Q.E.D. Game over. Toss it all in the trash. The Teapublicans quickly asserted that these website problems had accomplished what their stubborn congressional behavior had failed at.
Of course anyone with a lick of sense knows that a web portal of this magnitude is a major undertaking that wasn’t going to be easy to launch – especially under the rigid constraints imposed on it by the political process that established the ACA. But (understandably) that expectation wasn’t consoling to the masses trying to use the portal. Indeed there were annoying problems and lots of people couldn’t accomplish much in those first days.
The Teapublicans pounced, and proceeded to seek out and highlight every disgruntled user. The efforts of the administration to correct the problems were heavily ridiculed. Officials involved with the site were called before Teapublican-headed House committees to be lambasted. All the stops were pulled out in denouncing anything connected to Obamacare.
But behind the scenes the many of the problems with the site were being corrected and registrations and sign-ups increased. Others used the phone to sign-up. And stories slowly emerged about happy newly-insured people who never could before.
To offset the increasing satisfaction, the detractors quickly trotted out an Obama sound-bite from the era of the passage of the ACA. Obama had claimed that “if you like your current plan, you can keep it.” He failed state the obvious: that the “current plan” had to continue to exist. Of course this was twisted into an accusation of lying.
But some of the existing plans were JUNK — only good for big profit to fly-by-night companies, and would drop the customers in a minute if they put in a claim. It’s doubtful that ANYBODY holding those plans actually LIKED them. But that “if you like it” part of Obama’s quote was ignored when the detractors had a job to do….
Sure enough, the JUNK plans chose to kick everyone out rather than reduce their obscene profits to meet the basic requirements of the ACA. Though most all of the holders of those policies can now get BETTER plans at a BETTER price that they WILL like under Obamacare, the Teapublicans continued to label him a liar. So what else is new….
But speaking of lying, there are also outright lies from the pundits in their ObamaScare tactics. Hannity trotted out a small business owner claiming Obamacare forced him to drop employees – but when checked out, that business only had FOUR employees and didn’t come under Obamacare at all. Another family was trotted out claiming that they were going to be forced to pay 75% more (than their Blue Cross plan) for Obamacare, but when investigated were found to have never even applied. When they did, their new plan was 63% LESS than before! Another complained that their rates were skyrocketing because of Obamacare, but when confronted admitted they, too had not actually checked. In reality they found they will save 60%, and their child with a pre-existing condition will FINALLY be covered.
Every day much of the corporate media focuses on isolated cases of what APPEARS to be Obamacare problems, but fails to bother reporting on the masses who are finally successfully getting the insurance they’ve needed for years. Amateur newshounds think they’re breaking a big story with the guy who lost his junk policy, but doesn’t finish with the story of how happy he was after actually following up.
If you have job coverage and think your existing insurance is so great, just wait until you leave that job. You COULD have ended up with no insurance at all, at a time in your life where your body starts to wind down from your youthful wonder years. I speak from experience here. THIRTY years with IBM, and only 4 years after (forced) retirement every bit of the post-retirement healthcare support will be gone. Without Obamacare I would be looking at NO affordable insurance. And MY case is much better than most. It could and WOULD happen to you – without Obamacare.
THAT was much scarier than anything the ObamaScare posse can spew. Thank you, Barrack, for fighting for the PEOPLE here, over the corporate profiteers of the old ways. There’s much less to be scared of.
mr lybrand
your consistant tossing of mud on tea-party conservatives who simply support the constitution and its principals and precepts gets old to say the least. liberty and freedom as expressed by the founders are the cornerstones of the tea-party movement. i much prefer a teapublican sir to a libtard democrap anyday! the former stands for constitutional liberty while the latter stands for slavery under the obamanation book on marxist bill ayers steps to collectivism 101. i’ll bet you cheer nancy pelosi’s wisdom too! obamacare was shoved down our throats like it or not by the use of lies and deception which is now quite evident. i believe sir we find ourselves on the opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum. i much prefer liberty of choice and reject mandates…especially when it comes to healthcare for myself and family.
> “..who simply support the constitution…”
Much too SIMPLY, unfortunately for us all.
> “much prefer a teapublican sir to a libtard democrap”
Ouch, but typical. Responding to a valid abbreviation for “Tea Party Republican” with such childish derogatories.
Otherwise, nice regressive rant…..
Mr Lybrand; I am wondering if you yourself or anyone you know has successfully enrolled in Obamacare. I gave up after hours of error messages and dead-end loops and starting over several times. One would think that having years to set up a website and having spent $634 million on it that something would work. Just wondering.
Nice use of the Faux News talking points. That $630 million number has been debunked thoroughly (reality is more in the $100 million range). Still a lot, but even Twitter cost a lot more than that in its early days (and Twitter doesn’t have anywhere near the complexity).
As for the time involved, there were specific constraints forced on it by Congress (including a refusal to spend any more money on it to help get it well tested). They did the best they could within the constraints laid on them, and as one involved in major roll-outs myself over my career, I can tell you that they accomplished a LOT. Not enough, but it’s by no means the boondoggle the Teapublican Hype Machine is spewing.
And I have successfully used the site myself. Not perfect by any means, but it’s getting there. The problems you describe must have been early-on while all the overload from the tire-kickers and the media were dogging it. Try again now.
My old employer plan required over a half-hour just to go through the process of telling it to keep exactly what you already had last year (with a big increase in PRICE each year, of course). Spending at least double that to start from scratch should not be a surprise to anyone. The system can’t read your mind…..
I apologize for the Faux News talking point–what was I thinking? I’ll try to use better sources in the future–like this from Bloomberg Government (bgov.com). http://about.bgov.com/2013-10-24/late-it-cash-surge-foreshadowed-health-law-woes/
Now THAT is a different story altogether. That discussion is about the implementation of the entire ACA, which goes far beyond the’flakey website” that is being accused of costing all that money. The ACA implementation costs have risen sharply due to many things, primarily because of extra costs forced by the direct impediments being thrown up by the Teapublican states. Another story for another day….
I am a happy consumer of Obamacare. AIG unceremoniously cancelled my individual policy for no reason in 2008 (turns out they were up to their a**es in alligators of the financial malfeasance variety,) and I was unable to get ANY insurance. Ability or willingness to pay were not an issue, but previous medical conditions sure were. So, effective Jan. 1, I have a wonderful plan (the Gold Plan) at an extremely reasonable rate. As with most people whose total household income is <$64K a year, I will receive a sizable discount off the listed policy premium. Yes, the Healthcare.gov website is a disaster, but the phone assistance is splendid: my representative spent 44 unrushed minutes with me, took all my information (which I have to add, for the victims of the intense ongoing dis-information campaign,included only information the IRS and the Social Security Office already had….No, repeat NO medical history/data except for being asked whether I am a smoker) and sent me what I needed to complete my purchase in the mail. For the first time in 5 years+, every cough, ache, or pain will not have be wondering if this is the one that will either kill me or leave me bankrupt. Thank you President Obama.
One more thing, which I don’t believe a lot of people know about: although logging in, or creating an account may be impossible as of now, you can still go to the Healthcare.gov homepage and just click on “SEE PLANS NOW.” This will allow you to enter a small amount of income info any determine what plans will be available to you, and what the pre-subsidy cost will be; there is a link then for the Kaiser Family Foundation Calculator which will show you what your approximate final price will be. This simple process will put many anxious fears to rest for most shoppers.