President Obama Signing the Affordable Care Act.
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Yup. Signed, sealed, and delivered.
While it dribbled out over the last couple of years, I've been enjoying my Obama Care. Enjoyed seeing the $250,000 lifetime cap disappear from my health insurance plan. Enjoyed getting a free physicals and GYN exams. Enjoyed knowing that mammograms are free.
I've also enjoyed knowing that kids up to age 26 get to stay on their parents insurance so they can get care. Enjoyed knowing that people can't get denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Enjoyed knowing that people can't get kicked off insurance because they've gotten sick and need expensive care. I've enjoyed knowing that birth control is considered preventative care and, like vaccines, is also free.
I've also enjoyed knowing that women can't be charged more for insurance than men just because we're women.
I'm enjoying knowing that people don't have to stay in jobs they hate because they or a family member won't be accepted for insurance if they change jobs or want to quit to start a business.
I've enjoyed seeing Medicaid being expanded in states that don't have Republican Goobers in charge along with successful state exchanges. I do feel terrible about the poor folks in states like mine (where Medicaid eligibility was actually LIMITED by Emperor Scott Walker) who continue to go without access to health care or lose the Medicaid they once had. I'm hoping that change or compassion comes to those states.
I also enjoyed hearing about those greedy insurance companies having to cough up some checks to employers and individuals when they raked in over 20% more dough in premiums than they actually spent on health care. Yeah, their "overhead" and profits are now limited (and oh, how the insurance companies cried crocodile tears over that).
I've also enjoyed seeing Republicans pretend to care, for the first time ever, about people losing their access to health care or insurance. Yeah, I know it's all fake, but the acting ability that they've shown in their melodramatic pressers and interviews should make them contenders for Oscars, or at least an Emmy award.
And now I'm enjoying seeing 7.1 million people get good insurance at affordable rates.
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I haven't enjoyed the plethora of Obama Care attack ads where the ugliest and scariest Uncle Sam ever invades an exam room or the ads featuring whiny, lying, pretend "victims" of the ACA putting on their sad face to go with their phony tale of woe, I have enjoyed the seeing that the money wasted on those ads didn't stop millions of people from signing up. And while that ad money bought media influence, as it always does, the Obama Care success stories are getting out person to person. Polls show minds are being changed albeit slowly.
Sadly, most people don't realize everything that Obama Care does for them. It wasn't just the roll-out of the federal exchanges that was bad, it was the lack of roll-out for every single benefit that the Affordable Care Act has provided as its provisions went into effect one by one.
Those provisions should have been rolled out with a whole lot of hoopla. I would have loved seeing President Obama go state to state as each provision went into effect to loudly proclaim every single one of them. "Hi, folks, your kids under 26 can stay on your health insurance now. They don't have to cough up money for a private policy or go bare and hope they don't have an accident or get sick. This is the law now because of the Affordable Care Act." Rinse and repeat for each of the provisions as they came into effect.
Many speeches promoting every single provision would have gone far to educate the public about their brand new benefits. That would have prevented the information vacuum that enabled the RW screetchers to invent fake death panels and the rest of the little shop of horrors they used to propagandize the public into an abhorrence of Obama Care.
Instead there was a whole lot of nothing and in a vacuum the RW always rolls in with a plate full of lies and deception. If they had expected the TM to inform the public (i.e. actually DO their job), they haven't been paying attention to what the media has actually been doing (i.e. NOT their job). The media doesn't even bother to question, much less debunk, the litany of lies that get routinely served up.
No, if you want people to know something you have to tell them yourself. Big speeches. Bumper stickers and buttons that have a message like "I'm on my parents insurance now. Thanks Obama Care!". "My lifetime insurance cap is now gone. Thanks Obama Care!". "I get a free physical every year. Thanks Obama Care".
Democrats need to learn how to message their accomplishments at least as well as the GOP catapults their lies. If they don't, they have nobody to blame but themselves for people falling for propaganda. A lie, unconfronted by the truth, displays itself as the truth.
Of course this wouldn't have been a problem if they had fought for and passed Single Payer. No lies would have been possible because people like Medicare and giving it to everyone would have solved the entire health care access problem.
The fight goes on.
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