The Affordable Care Act has proven to be wildly successful in providing care to Americans who would otherwise be using the emergency room as their primary care physician. Even the conservative Forbes had to admit that premium rate increases were the lowest they’d ever seen.
In short, Obamacare has turned out to be anything but the death-panel laden, tax burdening economy-killer the right-wing wanted it to be so very badly.
How do you counter such incredibly good news that doesn’t jive with your political point of view?
You resurrect one of the oldest and dumbest lies about the law ever posted on social media:
Notice the name of the page that originally created the meme is “Retire Obama In 2012.” How’d that work out for ya?
It’s important when you make stuff up that you include specific references like “page 114, line 22.” The text on that line makes no sense without lines 21 and 23. Together they read:
(c) PROTECTION OF DATA.—The Secretary shall en sure (through the promulgation of regulations or otherwise) that all data collected pursuant to subsection (a) are—
Yes, even at that it leaves you wondering what the heck it’s talking about. One thing is for certain, it ISN’T some exemption from the law for Congress, the President, or anyone else.
So how did this whole thing get started? That’s actually a great story.
In an attempt to embarrass Democrats, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) proposed an amendment forcing all members of Congress and all of their staffs to enter the exchanges:
The only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are — (I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or (II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act).
Democrats, hardly embarrassed by the amendment, went ahead and added the amendment to the law. Unfortunately for Republicans trying to discredit anything they could about Obamacare, the law specifically states that people who are offered insurance through their employers had the right to keep that insurance. The people listed in the amendment all had qualified plans through their employer, the federal government.
The amendment was removed, and in typical Republican fashion the ordeal was put into the spin machine: If congress was mandated to use the exchanges, and now they’re not, why that means an exemption for them was created.
Voila, the birth of a really dumb scandal.
In all actuality the opposite was true. In an attempt to discredit Democrats, Republicans tried to have Congress and their staffers play by a different set of rules, which in essence violates the 14th amendment. Rather than admit they’re idiots it was much easier to let the spin continue without comment or correction.
Unfortunately it failed miserably, as proven by the current occupant of the Oval Office.
Every so often the right-wing nutjobs who need to keep people angry in order to get likes and shares on their hate pages resurrect something incredibly stupid, or just start shouting “Benghazi!”
You may have heard the saying “the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” That may need to change to “people who frequent ridiculous conservative Facebook pages.”
Featured Image: fellowshipoftheminds.com
Send to Kindle
