This is the part that’s pathetic. He was lying to you, and it doesn’t matter.
This is even more pathetic. You continue to believe his lies, even after you know they aren’t true. Obama lied when he said that people who liked their coverage could keep it. Obama lied when he said that insurance premiums would go down by $2500 a year. Obama lied when he said it wasn’t a tax. And yet you continue to believe all these things.
Bullshit has a well-known liberal bias.
Regards,
Shodan
As to whether I support the ACA? Why should it matter? What matters is what the ACA does, not what people say it does. And according to the data so far, it helps a lot more people than it hurts.
What lies of his do I believe?
When did I say I believe these things? Most people can keep their coverage, but some couldn’t. Premiums didn’t go down (though the ACA may have slowed the increase). It was a tax.
Liars lied. The ACA is better than no ACA. The country is better off with the ACA than without. This can be true whether or not Obama and other lied.
So far, the “bullshit” present has been the straw man you’ve built up.
Is it acceptable to knowingly obfuscate, in order to blunt the effects of the stream of lies the opposition is telling and will continue to tell, and will be effective, given the laziness of the electorate and the intellectual corruption of the media they pay attention to?
Sausage factory. Means and ends. Motes and logs. All of that.
Wrong. As already pointed out, when the Speaker of the House says the same thing, when lunatic lobbyists like Betsy McCaughey shout about “death panels” all over Fox News, talk radio, and conservative print and online media, I think it’s fair to say that it was a pretty damn common talking point among conservatives. Only idiots would believe it, of course, but for some reason many Republicans did – you figure it out! 
Cites here and here.
The vast majority could. Only a small subset of those with individual insurance and substandard policies were affected. It was wrong to make such a blanket statement but what Obama was trying to get across is the reassurance that no real structural changes were being made to the insurance system that people were comfortable with. And personally I think he just underestimated the extent to which insurance companies would ruthlessly exploit the situation for financial gain in that minority of cases where they could.
That’s not what that number was supposed to mean – it was the estimated reduction in total health care costs for an average family, taking into account not just premiums, but out-of-pocket costs, employer-provided insurance costs, and taxes to pay for public insurance programs. Whether that will happen still remains to be seen. It appears that there were occasions when Obama used the word “premium” instead of “health care costs” – but to call it a “lie” as in “intentional deception” stretches the definition to the breaking point, since the figure came from calculated estimates by his health care advisors.
It’s not a tax. The mandate was ruled constitutional under the federal government’s power to tax, but it isn’t a tax because a sane rational person who has health insurance doesn’t pay it. If you want to call a penalty for being stupid a “tax”, go ahead, but it doesn’t add anything to the discussion.
This is pretty weak. “May start us down a path towards” is a far cry from “equals”.
Boehner’s statement is a lot more accurate and less misleading than your post.
[I did observe that you left yourself some wriggle room in the “-ish” suffix, but no difference.]
…the fuck? Are you honestly being serious here?
Boehner’s statement was entirely horseshit ab initio. It it precisely as accurate as saying that the ACA “may start us on a path toward government-encouraged eels in hovercraft.” Less so, actually, since he knew very well what dog whistle he was blowing.
Fortunately, “opinions that Andros disagrees with” is not synonymous with “lie”.
Boehner was very clear on what he was saying and he accurately characterized the provision that he was discussing, and he was not claiming or implying that the bill provided for death panels. He felt it might lead to the situation he describes (which is itself not the same as a “death panel”); if you feel it wouldn’t then you’re entitled to your opinion too.
It’s amusing to see, in the same thread, people bobbing and weaving every which way to justify and minimize the misleading and false claims with which ACA was sold to the public, and at the same time holding Boehner responsible for a supposed “dog whistle” implication.
IIRC what also took place is that dropping or changing plans is standard operation procedure among insurance companies, the idea is that usually the insurers expect that people or the companies to change and so do their plans; in this case that standard procedure did look very bad, and the insurance companies should had realized that this required changes also on the entrenched idea that your old insurance terminated and many times the insurers put you in one with smaller medical groups and less coverage if you did not pay attention; the new regulations pointed to the need for insurers to be more proactive about the new plans and how to set people with the new options.
But the insurance companies that did benefit dropped the ball.
Of course plain incompetence could not be the whole history and indeed there was malice here from the part of the insurance companies, IMHO it is a good item to keep in mind once the next phase, about controlling costs, will have to be confronted by future administrations.
You honestly believe he was not implying that? At all? In any way?
And my opinion and Speaker Boehner’s carry equal weight?
I have not in this thread, nor in any other thread, nor indeed IRL, spent any time attempting to justify how the ACA was presented to the American public. Shovel that straw somewhere else, friend.
It is had to not miss the whistles to the ones believing about the death panels and the anti abortion groups too.
Gruber -
…*this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure the CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes the bill dies. OK. So it’s written to do that.
…Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, ya know, call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass*.
Gruber was calling the voters who supported the ACA, stupid.
Gruber didn’t call the voters who did not support ACA stupid. Gruber didn’t call the voters who had said the ACA was confusing and shouldn’t be passed until there was an actual bill to read, stupid. Gruber needed stupid, uninformed, voters to support ACA or the bill wouldn’t have passed. You know, the typical Obama supporter-type. 
Gruber ALSO lies about the state exchanges. On Jan 19, 2012, Gruber made it clear that states which did not set up state exchanges would not get their tax credits. On July 22, 2014, Gruber lies and says the wording is a typo. Busted again.
In the past, Pelosi thanked Gruber for his work in passing a confusing and non-transparent bill. Now, Pelosi doesn’t even know who Gruber the Liar is. It’s so sad.
Not that I can tell. The “death panel” claim was that the bill contained provisions that would allow panels to deny end-of-life care aimed at prolonging the lives of terminally ill patients. Boehner’s statement has nothing to do with that.
At most what you’re saying is that Boehner made statements that he knew people who weren’t paying attention to what he said would confuse with something else. But he was pretty clear about what he was saying, and what you’re saying is highly speculative and certainly not a basis for saying Boehner lied about the ACA.
Of course not. If you want for your opinion to carry equal weight you need to go out and get elected Speaker of the House. Until then you’re limited to sitting around knowing in your heart - and/or shouting to the world - how completely wrong Boehner is and how completely right you are. But that doesn’t make Boehner’s statement a lie. It was not a statement of fact. It’s just an opinion - an assessment of what might happen - that you personally feel is completely wrong. You need to distinguish between the two.
I’m cross-posting what I said in the other elections thread, given that I touch on Gruber’s gaffe & it’s effectively applicable here as well:
There are a myriad of reasons why the ACA is broadly unpopular amongst the general public, a number of which I’ve already touched on - at various points - in my other thread. Since this is the direction in which this topic is heading, then let’s have at it.
First and foremost, the ACA’s entrenched unpopularity stretches all the way back to its protracted drafting and eventual passage. In spite of the conservative rallying cry behind Gruber’s latest gaffe about the law’s supposed lack of legislative “transparency,” no amount of GOP historical revisionism will change the fact that the ACA’s long development in Congress was one of the most transparent legislative ordeals in Congressional history. Mind you, the law was debated in Congress for a year and a half before Obama finally signed it, and during that time there was round-the-clock reporting, Congressional interviews, and rampant punditry and analyses about how the eventual law was going to function. Don’t forget, one of the most controversial parts of the ACA - the so-called “Cornhusker Kickback” - was jettisoned entirely from the final law precisely because the ceaseless transparency made it resolutely untenable to voters.
Now, yes, here’s where I get to lay into the GOP for their horsefuckery. A year and a half in Congress gave rise to all the lies that even adaher has admitted the GOP has been guilty of perpetuating: shit like “death panels,” “socialized medicine,” a “government-takeover of health care,” the “end of freedom as we know it,” etc. Those lies are still unsubstantiated yet are still being told by GOP politicians, and they got their start during the lengthy push to get the ACA passed in the first place.
The second big issue is, sadly, an inherent one within the Democratic Party; namely, aside from a few firebrands like Sanders, Grayson, & Liz Warren, the Democrats in Congress are by and large total cowards. After they passed the law, they all virtually decided to run away from it in the face of constant GOP lies & attacks. There was a refusal to defend the ACA, a reluctance to even talk about it, and a White House that was doing jack shit to sell its landmark achievement.
Still, that ubiquitous reticence was exacerbated by the implementation timeline of the coverage expansion. Here, too, is another thing made painfully clear by Gruber’s latest admission: the Democrats resorted to a fair amount of gimmickry in order to hit their ACA budget targets. In practical terms, this meant that the biggest coverage expansions didn’t begin until last January - nearly four years after Obama signed the law - when, really, the administration could’ve gotten the bulk of the law up and running in two.
Still, though, even now that the law is objectively working & objectively doing precisely what it was DESIGNED to do - dramatically increase access to health insurance - why does it continue to enjoy stagnant public approval? It’s all in the timeline.
Think about it, four years is a long damn time for shit to happen in the political world. Between March 2010 when Obama signed the ACA and January 2014 when it (mostly) came online, a ton of shit was allowed to happen. In practical terms, there were two national elections (in 2010 & 2012), a Tea Party insurgency, a Supreme Court decision, and a fuckin’ government SHUTDOWN, all of which were heavily influenced by predominantly negative ACA politicking. In a more general sense, however, the four year gap gave rise to a certifiable industry that fueled ubiquitous anti-ACA rhetoric & demagoguery. Sky-is-falling predictions about the law’s effects were rampant, public opinion naturally soured, and anybody on the opposing side was either drowned out or too cowardly to speak up.
And that’s a point that I really want to drive home here: Conservatives can’t keep crowing about the ACA’s continued unpopularity without also acknowledging the ubiquity of anti-ACA demagoguery over the past four years. Of course, it follows that if the message is that “the ACA is the root of all evil” and that that message is repeated ad nauseum for several years, then the general public (who has never been widely aware of the ACA because the administration hasn’t sold it) will naturally develop an aversion towards the program.
Finally, yes, the rollout of HealthCare.Gov was botched & the “keep your plan” promise turned out to not be entirely accurate. Even the latter fiasco, however, was significantly overblown by the media & their GOP darlings; yes, some folks did have to update their plans as a consequence of new ACA regulations, but at the same time, the “keep your plan” promise DID turn out to be broadly true for MOST people even if it wasn’t true for everybody. The thing is, after Obama got caught up in that mess, he proactively decided to STOP making that promise, whereas the GOP continues to spew its horse shit about “death panels” and “socialized medicine.”
Even now that HealthCare.Gov is essentially fixed, the impact of its lousy rollout still impacts most of the public, many of whom don’t even realize the objective success of the ACA because (a) the conservative media won’t tell them & (b) the rest of the media doesn’t care. It’s unfortunate, but that’s where we are.
Now that SCOTUS is going to put the ACA through another existential crisis, the latest conservative gambit is to rally behind Gruber’s most recent gaffe in order to somehow mandate that the entire law is illegitimate in the first place, even though, y’know, it was publicly debated for a year and a half, passed by both chambers of Congress, signed by a democratically elected (and reelected!) president, and upheld by a Republican Supreme Court in 2012. But all of that doesn’t matter because Jon Gruber said some stupid things several years ago.
It’s important to remember, however, that even though the ACA is broadly unpopular amongst the public, repealing it is even more unpopular. And, as has already been said ITT, the public actually SUPPORTS the things that ACA does when those things are, y’know, actually described to them.
FWIW, I think the campaign of lies and deception is infinitely more applicable to the selling of the Iraq War than it ever could possibly be applied to the ACA, but the GOP would be loathe to admit that.
Sure, because marginally illiterate fear-mongering Republican lunatics are always the first to understand nuanced distinctions. That’s precisely how counseling for the elderly became “death panels” in the first place.
Exactly. And “dog whistle” is the perfect metaphor.
The “death panel” claim was that when the government runs the health care system, the government will kill old people. Boehner’s statement reinforces exactly that.
So on the one hand, in a thread that could be about Democratic misstatements, exaggerations, broken promises, and outright lies about health care, I shouldn’t tu quoque, because I agree that it’s wrong no matter who’s lying about policy. (I also agree that some lies are worse than other lies–a lie in service of a bad policy is worse than a lie in service of a good policy–but all such lies are wrong).
On the other hand, F-P’s attempt to defend Boehner’s deceptions is so hilarious and off-point, such a ridiculous undermining of the focus on Democratic deceptions, that it’s hard not to encourage it. I know such encouragement is wrong, but it feels so right.
That’s pretty damn silly of you.
I know what you mean. It’s like - if you can say “ha ha, what that guy is saying is so silly it’s funny …” you can get by with having no actual substantive argument at all. You see that a lot from some people, when they have nothing better.
Thank you! That’s the way I remember the SCotUS ruling. Good to know that I’m not the only one that understands distinctions with a difference.
Sadly, our efforts are as pearls to swine.
CMC fnord!
And if this is what you want the thread to be about, I mean, Godspeed, keep on keepin on. I do think Democratic misrepresentation of the law are worth discussing, but it’s bitter medicine for me; your sweet sweet prevarications about Boehner are far easier to take.