The Trump regime's "alternative facts" machine is already up and running, as pointed out Sunday in a panel on Joy-Ann Reid's MSNBC show.
“People are being hurt by their coverage being diminished, by their opportunities to get insurance being diminished,” Reid explained. “And [White House Press Secretary] Sean Spicer comes out and says, ‘No, they’re not. Nobody is suffering.’ And then you try to find the data on people’s insurance and HHS just doesn’t give it to you.”
“That’s where we are,” MSNBC analyst Joan Walsh agreed. “I think we’re really in a place where they’re going to scrub the data. They’re scrubbing websites now. And it’s really a challenge. I know a lot academics and others who are working to preserve the data that they already have.”
“They’re going to make it seems like, ‘Oh, well, Obamacare. We told you it’s falling apart,'” Walsh added.
The Trumpists have indeed scrubbed the White House's page detailing the accomplishments of the Affordable Care Act. The previous White House, knowing this was coming, took the precaution of archiving it and saving it for posterity, and for everyone who knows better to have it to point to.
But make no mistake, the theme from the Trump lie machine is going to be that Obamacare was doomed to fail, as Charles Gaba points out. Republicans started this back in December, figuring out how to make the disaster they create when they repeal the law without a replacement all Obama's fault. And they're moving forward with that plan.
That executive order Trump signed on Friday, on Obamacare? That's the start. Once his regime refuses to enforce the individual mandate that people have health insurance, that's the beginning of the collapse of the Obamacare system. Not having a guaranteed customer base will likely lead to insurers leaving the market. Even if they can't manage full repeal, they've already begun the process of destabilizing the system, causing enough uncertainty and chaos to take the insurers out of the game. Then, presto, even without having taken action to repeal the law, they can claim that it fell apart all on its own, and it's all President Obama's fault. If we let them.