Kochcare vs. Obamacare: Finally, Finally, Obama Comes Out Swinging
Mr. Obama also singled out sponsors of a “cynical ad campaign” discouraging Americans from signing up for the new health care program by arguing that it would effectively put the government into the room when women undergo gynecological exams and men undergo colonoscopies.
“These are billionaires several times over,” Mr. Obama said, evidently referring to the conservative political activists Charles and David Koch, without naming them. “You know they’ve got good health care.” But if people who turn down the new health care subsidy get sick, he said, the Kochs would not care. “Are they going to pay for your health care?”
— Obama Makes Impassioned Defense of Health Law, Peter Baker, New York Times, today
Damn! A few days ago, when I first read about these silly Koch-sponsored ads, I thought I would post here commenting on the good news: The Koch brothers are promising to pay the medical expenses of young people who forego healthcare insurance now available to them via Obamacare!
That was how I interpreted the ads, anyway. I mean, after all, the only other option for these newly christened “young healthies” who do have the option of gaining affordable healthcare insurance through Obamacare is to not have healthcare insurance at all. Sort of like the many millions of seniors who, without Medicare, would have no access to healthcare insurance at all, because of its high cost or because of preexisting conditions.
But since the Kochs aren’t urging seniors to forego Medicare in order to keep the government out of, say, the chemotherapy room or the coronary-bypass-operating room, I figured the difference was just that the Kochs aren’t willing to pick up the tab for the elderly, who will have no choice but to continue to let the government into the examining room with them and their doctor. I mean, what other possible reason would there be for the Kochs to not run ad campaigns similar to those directed at young people but instead directed at Medicare recipients?
None, I thought!
But I was wrong. According to Obama, the Kochs have no intention of paying the medical bills of the young people who, at their urging, and misunderstanding the ads just as I did, forego Obamacare in order to keep the government out of the physician’s examining room. And out of the delivery room. And out of the orthopedic surgery room. Among other rooms.
How disappointing. All those young people who thought from that ad that they’d be inviting the Kochs into all those medical rooms, and that the Kochs would accept the invitation! Or at least have United Health Care, WellPoint and Blue Cross Blue Shield stand in for them in those medical rooms. Only to hear the president say that that’s not what the Kochs meant.
Of course, what the Kochs actually are doing is trying to keep United Health Care, WellPoint and Blue Cross Blue Shield from being ushered into the examining room via Obamacare. And also from keeping their targets—the young currently-healthies—from themselves entering the examining room, at all, or from entering it and then having to pay large out-of-pocket retail costs (should they happen to have a savings account or a decent-sized regular paycheck, and can pay it). Even if they suddenly become unhealthy.
Deceit and deception are the order of the day amongst the reactionary right, both business people and politicians. Was Ted Cruz any less offensive in his rambling 21 hour stunt filled with distortions, misconceptions and out right lies about the implementation, costs and effects of ACA legislation.
Note, I won’t use the term Obamacare simply because Obama didn’t pass the legislation. The Congress did and Obama, as the President and a primary influence for that passage, signed the legislation into law. Let’s try to remember that the ACA is more than a plan from one man, backed by one man and voted into law by one man. It’s the Affordable Care Act, a name that underscores the financial aspect of the law. It is not a law that outlines medical practice. It’s a law that structures the health insurance industry in a way that allows for all people to be able to have such coverage.
Health care when needed is expensive. Health care isn’t a privilege, nor is it a right. It is an essential necessity. Make that point to the people that the Koch brothers, Ted Cruz and all of their lying associates are addressing with their false stories and asinine political ads. BTW, does the Koch organization that produced and placed those ads get preferred tax treatment under the guise of being educational? If so, the IRS should investigate and Justice should prosecute. Propaganda is a political activity masquerading as education.
Jack you just don’t understand. OF COURSE, the Kochs’ PAC is tax-exempt. It’s a social welfare organization!
As noted previously, propaganda is a political activity masquerading as education. The ads do not present the facts of a matter. They present an opinion and, worse yet, the opinion expressed is based upon a false premise. If the IRS is unable to distinguish between political ideology and a socially redeeming educational value then its enforcement office is itself being politicized. In that case the law is being perverted.
What? You don’t think that tricking or persuading people to forego free or affordable health care insurance, and risking bankruptcy or large lifetime debt, isn’t social welfare? C.mon, Jack!
Beverly
The issue isn’t what it is that will be the result of the message. The issue is the content of the message. The content is propaganda, in effect the message contains distortions of fact and in so doing is promoting a particular political ideology. In this case it is political because it focuses on an erroneous description of Congressional legislation, the ACA.
If the deception had to do with a social ideology one might excuse the effort as simple bigotry or prejudice. That might look like lies about the “evils” of same sex marriage or socialism as a general concept. That is not the case with this specific set of advertisements. They contain a clearly political message which is a fabrication of the contents of the ACA and how it will work in relation to health care. That is a political activity not an effort to promote the social good. It is clearly outside the confinements of such an organization’s permissible activities. For the organizers of the producing organization to suggest otherwise is virtually fraudulent. The IRS and Justice should address the issue.
Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Jack. My comments were facetious.
I assure you that I don’t think the Koch PAC is a social welfare organization–other than one whose sole interest is the social welfare of the Kochs and the others of their ilk who contribute to that PAC and others like it.