It may be a bit early to tell, but at a glance it sure looks like it to me. I mean, we all know that individual Fox News Hosts rarely get to truly go completely off the reservation, and regularly receive daily marching orders in how they are going to slant the news each day. That being the case it seems that the latest Mammon from Sammon just might have said, "Ixnay on the EpealRay!"
Exhibit A) Ted Cruz Gets told by Steve Doocy on Fox and Friends that "People aren't really Behind [Repealing the Law]".
Yes, seriously. it happened yesterday - Look.
“I think at this point it is abundantly clear this thing it isn’t working,” Cruz told the Fox News hosts the morning after the White House announced that it was on track to meet its goal of 7 million enrollees. “You can’t fiddle around the edges. I think it is the essence of pragmatism to recognize this thing isn’t working, and let’s start over, let’s repeal every word of it.”
“You know, you’re kind of in a minority when it comes to that,?” host Steve Doocy pointed out. “You look at the polling, Senator, and a lot of Americans like parts of it, would like to see parts of it continue. So, to blow the whole thing up, I don’t know if people are behind that.”
Do you suddenly feel a sense of vertigo? Like the floor is shifting beneath your feet and the room is spinning? Then imagine how a regular Fox Viewer probably feels as they hear those words being
thrown at Ted Cruz, by Steve Doocy?
Hope they've got some dramamine handy... because Steverino wasn't the only one who apparently Got the Memo.
Of course Cruz denied what Doocy was saying...
Cruz, however, insisted that “every poll that’s done” showed that the Affordable Care Act was the “profoundly most unpopular law we’ve seen in modern times.”
“I think it’s going to be repealed because I think the American people are demanding it,” the Texas Republican added.
No, they're not. The majority want the law to remain and/or be improved. Republicans -
All Republicans - have been denying this fact for Four Years Now. Despite, y'know -
Reality.
So it's not a surprise that Cruz just ignores the truthful things that Doocy is saying, but then - here's the double-kicker - but then Brian Kilmeade chimed in to back up Doocy!!!
Co-host Brian Kilmeade reminded Cruz that Americans supported many provisions of the Affordable Care Act, like protecting people who have preexisting conditions.
“Are you going to go through elements of that to replace it, and where is the Cruz plan?” Kilmeade pressed.
Oh, SNAP! No he didn't?!! Yes, yes he did.
To which Cruz repeated the old platitudes about "Health Savings Accounts" and "Selling Across State Lines" - features that already existed in the law prior to Obamacare and simply don't work to expand coverage, or keep it affordable.
Exhibit B) Fox Host Grills Lindsey Graham over a Hot Foreman Bar-B-Que for an ObamaCare "Replacement".
First Graham rolled out the usual talking points...
“Well, I think we need to repeal it, and we need to replace it,” Graham insisted. “I think it’s good for the Republican Party to have a plan of its own that could insure Americans without having to lose your doctor and bankrupt the country.”
Fox Host Jenna Lee then asked what that that replacement plan might look like, to which Graham gave the standard boiler-plate "Pre-existing Conditions, Children keep their parents plan" ideas which are
already in the law and of course the ever present "State Lines" thing.
But that's when it gets interesting when she asks Sen. Graham to back up Sen. John Barrasso's claim that the Obama Administration has "Cooked the Books" on signups...
“Your colleague, Sen. Barrasso says that the White House is actually fixing the books [on enrollment numbers],” Lee pointed out. “Do you agree with that?”
“Totally, they are!” Graham replied.
“Do you have any facts to back that up?” Lee asked.
OH SHIZNIT! "Do you have any facts?" - being asked by a FOXER to a Republican? And lo, was
Fire and also the WHEEL finally discovered by FOX NEWS!
Yeah, but it's not like he was gonna answer that. C'mon...
Instead of backing up the assertion with facts, Graham asked some questions of his own questions: “Tell me how many people who signed up for Obamacare have paid?”
Only the ones who've had a chance to
Receive Their Bill! Ba-dum
ching! Thank you, I'm here all week.
But seriously, no - Seriously - it was at this point that Lee did something odd. She's stopped accepting Bullcrap as an answer, and began to pepper Graham repeatedly on why the Republicans don't already have a Replacement Bill on Deck?
“Why do you think Republicans can put together a better plan to get the trust back in government?” the Fox News host wondered. “What are Republicans putting out there that says to the American people, ‘No, you can trust us.’”
Yeah, why exactly should we trust people with our Government, who
don't believe in our Government? Inquiring minds want to know...
But since Graham didn't answer the question other than to go on about "You can't fix Obamacare" and then immediately say "You've got to take some elements I described and build a new plan" - which frankly sounds like Fixing Obamacare to me if you START With Features of Obamacare - so, then she tried again.
“Why hasn’t a full proposal of a completely different plan from the GOP been developed, put out to the press for the press to look at and really dig into?” Lee pressed.
Yeah, Why IS THAT? Queue the next non-answer Jimmy!
“I hope that comes,” Graham said slowly. “But at the end of the day, we’re trying to implement a law that’s just failing America on multiple fronts. So, I’m in the camp of explaining to the American people that when a Democrat tells you that he wants to mend it, not end it. It can’t be mended.”
You're answer to "Why is that?" is "I hope that comes"? What? Well, why hasn't it come? Cuz I Hope it does. Someday. Over the rainbow.
One more try...
"Getting back to the question,” Lee said, trying one last time. “What is preventing the Republicans from putting forward a real plan that everybody can look at, even before November? Is it simply the election and political pressure that’s not allowing that to happen? Are you waiting for the change in the Senate?”
Yes, what is PREVENTING REPUBLICANS from putting forth their own plan - for the last
Four Years Now?? They could have started in 2009 when the Bill was first being marked up and drafted, but
nooooooo...
To which Lindsay responded IMO with a slightly more eloquent version of Homina Homina Homina...
“I think we should have an outline of a health care plan, and that would be better for America,” Graham droned. “I think that would help the Republican Party. But between now and then, our Democratic friends are trying to sell the American people, ‘You can fix this Obamacare.’ It can’t be fixed. It’s got to be torn down, and start over.”
Face Palm!. Bloody Hell.
Yeah, dude, I think YOU SHOULD HAVE AN OUTLINE OF A HEALTH CARE PLAN too. Exactly Why. the. FRACK. Don't. You?
ah, Fuck it...
Exhibit C) Fox News apologizes and Unskews their own Skewed Chart
Suddenly Susan, after they produced this chart yesterday which attempts to make 7 look 4 Times Larger than 6... because if you think you can get away with a bogus lie, why not try right?
Then Fox News produced this corrected chart today...
Which is definitely something. This chart still calls 7 Mil signups a "Goal" when in fact they were merely a CBO estimate, but still... not quite as crappy is still not quite as crappy.
Speaking of that "GoooooooAAAALLLLL!!".. It was Reached Today.
Seven Million People who had been left out in the cold by the Insurance industry and their public lackeys in the Republican Party now have a chance at Health Insurance. Seven Million - not counting children still on their parents plan, or people in the Medicaid expansion or who purchased plans Off-Exchange - NOW have a chance at Peace of Mind. Seven Million VOTERS now realize that the Republican Party has been Deliberately Lying to them for Years.
And how do we think they should repay the Republican Party this November?
Perhaps, just perhaps, the muckity mucks in the upper echelons of Bullshit Mountain have realized that after yesterday - Their Anti-ObamaCare garbage is starting to stink. So if the Republicans have now lost the doe-eyed fawning support of Fox News in their multi-year-long battle against the "Evils of Obamacare"...
If Republicans can now expect to get peppered and pestered by the likes of Steve F-ing Doocy and back-benchers like Jenna Lee on Fox [The GOP Home Turf!] News about how "People Like their Obamacare" and "Where's Your PLAN, Senator?"... the worm may have finally turned.
Unfortunately for them, who knows if they can turn this ship around before it hits the November Iceberg? The GOP long ago reached Ramming Speed on their ObamaCare Jihad, can they change course now? Will they?
I Hope Not. But it will be so delicious watching them try.
Vyan
2:57 PM PT: Best Guess on what a GOP Health Reform Might look like?
We'll they'd start with removing what they don't like. They'd cancel the Exchanges and Subsidies, so those 7 Million people would be screwed. Then they'd cancel the Medicaid expansion and mess up another 3 Million [Not Coincidentally, Repub Governors haven't implemented it because they expect this will happen as soon as Repubs get full control of either Congress or the White House again]. Then goes the Individual Insurance Mandate, the Tax Penalty and very likely the Preventive Care Mandate. Say goodbye to the ban on yearly expenditures, and the cap on yearly out-of-pocket expenses, while BOOM goes those deductibles and the rate of Medical Inflation.
Want a Red Solo Cup Plan? Sure, you can have that, except it won't pay for anything. I mean, anything.
And after this they're going to try and keep Children on their Parents Plans, and try to somehow keep banning the ability to block people with pre-existing conditions - how they do this without Exchanges, I'm not sure, perhaps by going backwards to the High-Risk Pools that were several times more expensive than the Exchange plans are - which of course will be all fail for the sick and the poor.
Meanwhile they'll Keep the Excise Taxes, they'll keep the Cuts/Savings in Medicare [as shown several times by Ryan's Budgets], then they try to voucherize/privatize Medicare and block grant Medicaid.
Then comes insuring across state lines which will function in the same way that credit cards across state lines works: which is that state with the laxest rules and the weakest consumer protections "Wins", or in other words - it doesn't work. Not for sick people, that is.
In the end about 10 Million people will lose the care they now have, while Medicare and Medicaid get weakened. Yay G.O.P.
The problem Republicans have is if they say any of that - they're Fracked!. So maybe Democrats will just have to tell the public what their "Plan" is for them, ya think?