Almost immediately, red flags went up among those who follow the health care debate closely. And for good reason: over the last several months, Republicans and their allies have put a spotlight on quite a few “Obamacare victims,” but the stories invariably fell apart after modest scrutiny. With this in mind, it was only natural to wonder about the circumstances surrounding “Bette in Spokane,” who presumably represented the single best piece of anecdotal evidence McMorris Rodgers could find as part of her ACA indictment. Fortunately, we now have a better sense of the relevant details, which, like so many “Obamacare horror stories,” don’t help the Republicans’ case at all.
It’s a tired and predictable as it is dishonest and disingenuous. Republicans have come to understand that they’re not going to win any debate about the Affordable Care Act on the merits of their argument, so they’ve decided to lean on their old standbys: lies, invented horror stories, and propaganda. The latest impotent effort was put forth by Cathie McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). Being one of the few women in the House Republican Caucus, she’s frequently featured as a way to convince the American Sheeple that Republicans really DON’T hate women. Never mind that she seldom strays from approved GOP talking points when the spotlight’s on her. Frankly, I’m not certain Rodgers has expressed an original thought during her tenure in Congress. She’s just another Republican empty suit, a by-the-book Republican who toes the party line as if her very life depends on it.
This explains her underwhelming rebuttal to last week’s State of the Union address. It was the typical Republican “OMG!! OBAMACARE IS THE WORST THING SINCE AUSCHWITZ!!” shtick, completely with trotting out a horror story that doesn’t stand up to even a minimum of fact checking. By reciting the sad saga of “Bette in Spokane,” I imagine Rodgers thought that she’d create a backlash against the evil, socialistic privations of Obamacare. (At least that’s what her talking points tell her.) How could Big Government do that to a poor, innocent woman in the middle of frickin’ nowhere?? Have they no conscience??
Except that it turns out that Rodgers’ tale of Obamacare’s tyrannical abuse of “Bette in Spokane” is one part propaganda and nine parts lies.
I know; whodathunkit??
“Not long ago, I got a letter from Bette in Spokane, who had hoped the president’s health care law would save her money, but found out instead her premiums were going up nearly $700 a month…. No, we shouldn’t go back to the way things were, but this law is not working.”
So, one case where things appear not to be working as promised…and because of that we must toss the baby out with the bath water? Not long ago, Fox News Channel showed an interview with a surfer in California who’d figured out how to game the welfare system. The pundits at FNC used this example to explain why welfare was a bad, nasty, awful thing steeped in creeping socialism that would only create dependence from sucking too long at Big Government’s teat…and so must be destroyed. Sorry, but a lone example is not proof that the entire system needs to be dismantled. There IS no perfect system; people will figure out a way to game whatever happens to be in place. We’re human beings; it’s what we do. Is it right or desirable? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean you blow everything up because one person’s figured out how to manipulate things to their advantage.
In the case of “Bette from Spokane,”, it didn’t take long for a newspaper in Rodgers’ district, the Spokane Spokesman-Review to discover that the Congresswoman had managed to overlook the facts behind the story.
Quelle surprise. Facts can be such nasty, inconvenient things….
The local newspaper…tracked down Bette Grenier, who wrote the letter used in McMorris Rodgers’ remarks.
[T]he “nearly $700 per month” increase in her premium that McMorris Rodgers cited in Tuesday night’s GOP response to the State of the Union address was based on one of the pricier options, a $1,200-a-month replacement plan that was pitched by Asuris Northwest to Grenier and her husband, Don.
The carrier also offered a less expensive, $1,052-per-month option in lieu of their soon-to-be-discontinued catastrophic coverage plan. And, Grenier acknowledged the couple probably could have shaved another $100 a month off the replacement policy costs by purchasing them from the state’s online portal, the Health Plan Finder website, but they chose to avoid the government health exchanges.
The story, in fact, is not nearly the travesty that Cathie McMorris Rodgers would have us believe. Turns out that “Bette in Spokane” didn’t even have what could be described as a health care plan. What she had was a policy that covered ONLY catastrophic care…and that had a $10,000 deductible. She was for all intents and purposes uninsured.
The “problem” is that Obamacare requires individuals to transition from bare-bones policies to actual, honest-to-God health care coverage. In light of that, yes, some Americans will be paying more- BUT THEY’LL HAVE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE THAT ACTUALLY COVERS HEALTH CARE. Funny how Rodgers conveniently managed to ignore that truth so she could peddle the same old tired Republican lies.
[I]t’s worth emphasizing that there are Americans who’ve been adversely affected by health care reform. In a nation of 314 million people, it will be possible to find some who didn’t benefit as much as everyone else. In fact, it’s inevitable.
But in the rush to condemn the law, the public has been confronted repeatedly with anecdotal evidence that’s completely fallen apart. Worse, consumers invariably hear more about the horror stories than the follow-up reports proving the horror stories wrong.
If the Affordable Care Act were really as awful as the right claims, shouldn’t it be easier to find genuine examples of Obamacare’s “losers”?
You’d think that Republicans could easily trot out examples of Americans legitimately harmed and wronged by the Affordable Care Act. If Obamacare is the miserable failure that Republican talking points insist it is, then who are the people being harmed? Why aren’t Republicans holding press conferences to expound at length about how these Americans are being crucified by an unjust law created only to serve the interests of Big Government? Why aren’t they burying us in FACTS instead of lies and misinformation?
The truth is they’d have to look pretty hard to find people legitimately harmed by the Affordable Care Act. Sure, in a nation the size of America, it’s entirely possible that there are people adversely impacted by Obamacare. It’s not a perfect law- far from it- but it’s what it is largely because the President agreed to water down his original health care reform plan in order to mollify Republicans. For the vast majority of Americans, Obamacare has been a net benefit. Millions of previously uninsured Americans now have health coverage. Insurance companies can’t deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. The available evidence indicates that health care reform has largely been quite successful. Is it perfect? Of course not, but those imperfections don’t warrant repealing Obamacare and restoring our previous Third-World-level health care distribution system in all its glory.
I’d be happy to see- even participate in- an honest debate about Obamacare based on reality, evidence, and actual fact-based case studies of how the law has impacted individual Americans. The truth is that Republicans will never engage in that sort of debate- because they know they have no shot at winning. They have no shot because they can’t find (or can’t be bothered to find) people in sufficient numbers whose stories might support their argument that Obamacare is THE WORST THING EVER.
Instead they’ve relied on lies and invented stories that don’t stand up to even a bare minimum of scrutiny. That’s not justification for dismantling Obamacare; it’s the reason why Rodgers and her fellow Republican liars should be voted back into the minority in November.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
