Ah, but ObamaDoesCare is ++ungood for whom? Why, Republicans, of course. That's why we are pointing and laughing. (++Ungood, or doubleplusungood, is Orwell Newspeak for superlatively bad, the worst, beyond ungood/bad and +ungood/worse.)
Democrats are going to run on health care all through the midterms and right into 2016, when we can remind the public what Republicans did to HillaryCare. Winning the midterms would let us pass and then run on a good deal more, such as a new Voting Rights Act, Immigration Reform, ENDA, EFCA, a jobs and infrastructure bill, Wall Street reform, gun safety, and some level of Global Warming prevention. For starters. And thus Even More and Even Better Democrats the time after.
That isn't just pink flying unicorns with pixie dust. It is the deepest, darkest fear of Republicans, and justifiably so. UN black helicopter fire-breathing dragons from the pit of Hell, if you like. Call it ObamaScare.
Bill Kristol told them that this would happen in his strategy memo for killing HillaryCare in 1993, when he called HillaryCare
a serious political threat to the Republican Party.
Everything else Republicans say about the ACA is a Dog Whistle for that fear and loathing, as you will see below the orange Ocarina of Doom.
The ACA is a trainwreck, according to Max Baucus and every Republican? Yes. For Blue Dogs and Republicans.
The ACA is Socialism? You ain't seen nothing yet. Why, Vermont is already on track to implement single payer in full by 2017 under the ACA.
The ACA is Obama's Waterloo? Waterloo was Wellington's Waterloo, too, you know, and the end of Napoleon's "Hundred Days" return to power after his escape from exile on Elba. Napoleon should have heeded his own advice, which applies just as well to Republicans.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a grave error.
Republicans: The
original mantra that you have effectively parodied for so long was
We will spend and spend, and tax and tax, and elect and elect.
Attributed to FDR adviser Harry Hopkins, the Administrator of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the New Deal.
Whereas your plan comes down to
We will cut and cut, and abuse and abuse, and lose and lose.
Are you a racist? The ACA helps Blacks and other minorities to be healthier and live longer, and thus be more politically active.
Are you a bigot? The ACA is notably good on helping those with AIDS as a pre-existing condition, who need expensive medication probably for the rest of their lives, which will make them mostly non-infectious in the process. While AIDS was never an exclusively LGBT issue, our brethren and sistren and their allies (apart from the Log Cabin Republicans) who heard the words, "Die, sinners!" do not forget. Nor this admittedly extreme example that no Republican denounced.
Pat Robertson Suggests Gays With AIDS Wear Rings To Cut, Infect Others
Are you a misogynist? The ACA is particularly helpful to women by removing femaleness from the list of pre-existing conditions that insurance companies can charge more for, and mandating contraception coverage, even though it does not change Federal policy on funding for abortions. Do you remember the gender gaps that Republicans are creating for themselves on sex education, contraception, and abortion?
Are you a Pro-Lifer? Freak out. Really freak out. Mandatory coverage of birth control is a BFD (literally) that will radically reduce abortion rates and further show you up as the hypocrites you are. See misogyny.
Are you a nativist? The ACA is one of the most important programs for legal immigrants short of actual immigration reform, which would put millions more immigrants on a path to getting ACA benefits.
Are you an RKBAer? Do you know that we are pointing and laughing at you over your determination to prevent treating guns as a public health issue, and your lies about the effects of the ACA on that?
Four Falsehoods About Doctors And Guns Pushed By Conservative Media
See also Kossack David Waldman's Gunfail Diary series, which is up to Episode 50.
Are you a 1%er? The ACA will indeed be a powerful motivator and enabler for the 47% (who turned out to be a majority in the 2012 elections, including the votes of their allies) to vote against your tax cuts, loopholes, and deregulation demands. And to live longer and be healthier and thus more politically active, as I was saying about minorities above.
Are you a military hawk, perhaps even a Neo-Con who pretends to support the troops? War is and always has been one of the world's biggest health issues. Given that mental health care is an essential feature of the ACA, I expect a lot of veterans to get PTSD and other disability care under the exchanges and Medicaid expansion who cannot currently get what they are entitled to from the VA.
Are you a States-Rightist? What do you think will happen when Democratic community organizers (Oh, noes!!) start to Get Out The Vote among the poor in your state over the issue of you turning down Medicaid expansion? Many of them are signing up for your existing Medicaid programs, as for example the 16% jump in South Carolina, because they have just now found out about it from all the noise you are making.
Are you a Rand Paul Libertarian? Do you really want to run on the notion that either extended unemployment benefits or expanded health care do a disservice to those who need them? Yeah, if you get back to the Milton Friedman/Richard Nixon Guaranteed Minimum Income for ending all of poverty some time, we can discuss ending all of the programs for the poor once there aren't any more poor people.
Are you a college Republican? Do you expect us, or the children of other Republicans who are falling away by the millions, to take your pro-Immigration Reform/pro-LGBT/pro-women rebranding efforts seriously when you come out with this nonsense attacking yourselves?
The Obamacare House of Cards is Collapsing
Obamacare is an impressive house of cards. Its intricate layers of carefully coordinated policies sway precariously in the winds of website failures and actuarial miscalculations. But most worrisome, especially to its Obama administration architects, is that the entire edifice rests atop a wobbly foundation of youth participation.
Right, because none of the three million young people, up to the age of 26, who get to stay on their parents' insurance, amount to anything when ideology is at stake. Nor the children among the 4.3 million who have gotten expanded Medicaid and SCHIP. Nor the children whose parents get to buy insurance for the first time. Nor the children who can never be denied coverage at any time in their lives for pre-existing conditions. Nor, in fact, the other young people who are dying to sign up for real insurance and get rid of junk policies or become insured for the first time, as the case may be, so they can live without fear of medical catastrophe, including bankruptcy; so that they can responsibly marry and have children; so that they can become entrepreneurs; so that they can pay their dues to society and get covered in later years at lower cost to themselves; or for any other reason. Why would those people vote for Democrats, hmm?
Are you an old-style pro-Republic Republican? The ACA is your program, that Democrats implemented. Why haven't you drawn the logical inference, that Obama is the true heir of the Eisenhower/Rockefeller/Edmund Burke Republicans
Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.
Letter to a Noble Lord
as well as of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, and you should join his party instead of staying with The Stupid Party, the party of the War on Everybody? And change your positions on making war on the entire population, as well. After all, Democrats are historically better for the economy than Republicans, and Health Care economics are no exception. Particularly since you are RINOs to the Tea Party tail, currently wagging the Republican dog, that you think you are whistling at past the graveyard.
But don't mind me. Please proceed, Republicans.