In addition to the GOP's hypocrisy regarding GLITCHES on a rollout for a program, there is an op-ed piece on the A.C.A. in The Wall Street Journal by some ex-teevee personality and hawker of dubious medical advice [Suzanne
"And then there is another consideration: It’s the dark underbelly of the Affordable Care Act reminiscent of what Lenin and Churchill both said. Lenin: “Socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.” Churchill: “Control your citizens’ health care and you control your citizens.”
"Unsurprisingly, Lenin never said that line — it’s a decades-old right-wing fabrication. The more curious line is the Churchill quote.
It’s almost certainly fake, too; it does not appear in the LexisNexis database or in Google. Unless Somers has done original archival work on Churchill, she seems to have fabricated that quote on her own, or possibly received it via chain e-mail." --Daily Kos
The Wall Street Journal on the quote:
"CORRECTIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS: An earlier version of this post contained a quotation attributed to Lenin (“Socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state”) that has been widely disputed. And it included a quotation attributed to Churchill (“Control your citizens’ health care and you control your citizens“) that the Journal has been unable to confirm."
So here we have a respectable newspaper having to write a disclaimer for a poorly researched article they featured in their publication. And what does that say about Somers? If she couldn't do the research to get that right, why should anyone believe anything she wrote in the rest of her article?
One word for her opinion and her research: Sloppy.
WE GIVE YOU CHRISSY, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S "EXPERT" ON THE NATION'S A.C.A.:
Next time, WSJ geniuses, go for the gravitas and get Paris Hilton.
17 comments:
ok. If Republicans are so aghast that glitches exist...why were they not shouting loudly,vehemently, persistently.... to shut down the wars in Iraq and Afgahnistan?
I guess glitches are only evil and nasty when the occur in an attempt to help people. If your goal is destruction...glitches are good.
Aaron Carroll, professor of pediatrics at Indiana University:
There have been books, webinars and meetings explaining how to sabotage the implementation of Obamacare. There have been campaigns trying to persuade young adults not to use the exchanges. It is, therefore, somewhat ironic that many of the same people who have been part of all of this obstructionism seem so "upset" by the fact that people can't easily use the exchanges. For goodness sake, the government was shut down just a few weeks ago because some of the same people who are now bemoaning poorly functioning websites were determined to see that not one dime went to Obamacare.
Lest you think I'm defending this month's rollout, I encourage you to review my last article here. I still maintain that the administration has had a failure in management in overseeing and reporting on progress towards October 1. But I'm also sympathetic that they've had a hard job to do. I would like to see this go better. I'd like to see millions more get insurance. I'd like to see the law of the land function as well as it can, and if it doesn't, I'd like to see Congress continue to amend it to make it work better. I'd like a better health care system.
What I cannot ignore, however, are the many people who actively worked to see implementation fail now get the vapors over its poor start. The truth is, they got what they wanted. A victory lap is somewhat warranted, not concern-trolling."
Ultimately, okjimm, none of this hyperbole over the glitches will matter. The A.C.A. is here to stay, and all the problems from the roll-out will be addressed. Americans are going to love the A.C.A., and that's what is driving the extremists on the right even more crazy.
She's who she is. That's no surprise.
What's remarkable isn't that she's who she is. It's her presence in an op-ed column on a complex subject in which she has no demonstrable history of expertise, in what purports to be a serious newspaper, which presumably employs people called 'editors'.
And, even more so, that nobody seems to think it odd in the least that she be given such a platform.
Shaw: The A.C.A. is here to stay, and all the problems from the roll-out will be addressed. Americans are going to love the A.C.A., and that's what is driving the extremists on the right even more crazy.
Yep. They're making a huge fuss over the glitches because that's all they've got. They're desperate to cement the "ACA = failure" meme in as many people's heads as possible while they still can, and at this point the glitches are the best they can do for that purpose.
(They're also spewing "horror stories" based on the substance of the program, but those don't stand up to serious investigation.)
The WSJ correction on the fake quotes is surprisingly limp. Don't they realize this is a serious journalistic error?
The right wing is rather fond of fake quotes. They have lots of them attributed to the founding fathers of the US to make them sound like they meant it to be a "Christian nation". Any quote attributed to a person generations ago that sounds like modern right-wing boilerplate should be viewed with suspicion.
"The only thing wrong with being an extremist is that you disagree mightily with the fellow whose ideas you find extreme. It is easy to label people are extremists. You just have to say, for example, 'If Cuccinelli isn't extreme then the word has absolutely no useful meaning,' and poof … he’s extreme."
No. Numbnuts.
Cuccinelli is extreme because he proposed sticking probes up women's vaginas when they were not medically necessary, and because he also wanted to make certain sexual acts that consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms a felony.
How convenient the EXTREMISTS like this writer ignore FACTS.
Cucinelli is a raging extremist, as is Suzanne Somers, who is also a dimwit [they seem to be so consistently attracted to the Tea Party--Sarah Palin, Victoria Jackson, Michelle Bachmann and the quoted writer above].
I had to include Somers in this comment because Shaw's rules are that the comments need to be on topic.
So there's that.
So I actually popped over there and read it. She's got an anecdote about Canadian health care that reads like the email your crazy uncle passes along.
It also reads like it was written by a high school student. She continually refers to something she calls "affordable health care" as evil, socialist, and otherwise bad - as if the general concept of "affordable health care" is a bad thing unto itself, not the capitalized Affordable Care Act that I think she intends to refer to.
How can the WSJ publish something not only so stupid but so poorly vetted? It's hilarious!
Shaw, while I support the ACA and will benefit mightily from it, I am not sure it is here to stay.
If the Admin cannot get the "glitches" fixed, and from what i have read from the tech side, that is a big if, the must file dates will have to be changed. Indeed, that was done today.
The problem with that is that rates were set by the insurance companies based on a set date date for coverage. Now that the date has been changed, all of the rates, which the web sites, at least in my state, say are not final, may have to change.
Also, what happens if young people just opt for the $100.00 fine? The system could be crushed if that happens and the exchanges do not get the healthy people paying into it.
Now today we are hearing that the WH was aware that people were in fact going to lose their current coverage and be forced to opt into the ACA even though President Obama said all along that would not happen.
So we are faced with a question regarding President Obama and his statements. And they are brutal questions...
Was he lying when he said that people would not lose their coverage even though the bill specifically says that?
Or did he not know what was in the bill?
Either way, it is bad politically.
Support in Congress has always been tepid at best for the ACA among Dems. I do not think it would be out of the question for them to abandon supporting the law if the political heat becomes to much to bear.
Time will tell, but the reality is that President Obama is never going to run for reelection again, but the pols will.
Perhaps we will see a system that allows adult children to stay on mom and dads policy until 25 and eliminates preexisting conditions and nothing else...
it would not be affordable, but it is possible.
BTW... here's a great link to an article on the ACA and the GOP part in it...
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/28/what_the_tea_party_misses_if_you_hate_obamacare_youll_really_hate_what_the_right_wants_to_do_to_social_security/
Dave, your concerns are legitimate. But it is also very difficult to sort out all of the issues surrounding the roll-out AND what President Obama predicted about keeping one's coverage.
Right now, all we can do is get as much information about all of your concerns from good sources--that is, neutral sources, if they can be found.
The tragedy in all of this is that the GOP [whose Heritage Foundation this plan is based on] did nothing to get this to run smoothly and everything to sabotage it.
If there was ever a tragic example of a country rich with the greatest natural resource--its people, squandering that resource, this is it.
Had the Dems and the Repubs worked with each other there is no doubt in my mind that this would have worked as smoothly and efficiently as one could hope in a country with as large a population as this one.
(In fact the rollout is working in states like Kentucky, where its governor did not opt-out.)
For reasons I'll never understand, we Americans love our political ideology more than we care for each other.
For a country that prides itself on holding "Christian values," that doesn't make any sense.
Next time, WSJ geniuses, go for the gravitas and get Paris Hilton.
Hah!!
Dave, they'll fix the glitches. Other programs have had problems like this at first but are still here, as the graphic at the top of the post shows.
A sitting President has a lot of power and Obama still has more than three years in office. Even Democrats who get weak-kneed will hesitate to cross him where his #1 legacy project is concerned.
Shaw, amen to much of what you said...
I like that you put "Christian values" in quotes.
That's a phrase many people throw around without much thought in reality.
Christian values would never have allowed a system that treated some people as less than whole. Christian values would never have killed people for their land.
I could go on, but suffice to say, I think there is more than enough evidence to say the values of our founders were not truly focused on the values of Jesus. At least not the values that should have mattered to people.
Well stated Dave While not a fan of the ACA as I understand the myriad of issues that are developing around the law I am willing to give it more time. Assuming of course Obama is willing to extend deadlines if issues are not satisfactorily resolved.
If the presidents campaign promises are actually realized I too will benefit nicely as I no longer have company subsidized insurance, which by the way was $2300 a year, as I am now self employed.
My advice to all those already trumpeting the ACA and how wonderful it is going to be is wait, hold your tongue, and hope your right. At this point the success promised by Obama is far from certain.
Man, they must be dying left and right up in Canada, Chrissy's friend spent two moths in bed vomiting before she could see a doctor to get the pill that cured her.
Are readers dumb enough to believe that? Really, who believes that?
Has Rupert Murdoch taken the Journal that far down?
What's next, an analysis of nuclear power with Kim Kardashian?
<< Right now, all we can do is get as much information about all of your concerns from good sources--that is, neutral sources, if they can be found. >>
Thing is Shaw, Dave is being neutral. His position is similar (I think) to the position I have been repeating for years now. I benefit from the ACA, but that doesn't mean I can't be objective.
Duckys here stuff is always good.
Suzanne Somers' claim in The Wall Street Journal that Lenin said “Socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state” and Churchill said “Control your citizens’ health care and you control your citizens” is in error. The correct Lenin quote is, "Suzanne Somers needs to vet her conspiracy email better," and the correct Churchill quote is: "The Wall Street Journal needs to vet Suzanne Somers better."--from the Daily Kos
I too read the Somers' article... she gives first hand accounts from people she knows and is related to, so that will probably fool some into thinking she must be telling the truth... but she repeats the lie that "your most intimate and personal information is now up for grabs".
This is the lie (that the ACA website violates HIPAA) that was dissembled by Joe Barton of Texas (he who apologized to BP for the $20 Billion Claims Fund negotiated by the Obama Administration, calling it a "shakedown"). But, as pointed out by Frank Pallone of NJ, "HIPAA only applies when health information is being provided"... and signing up for insurance using the exchange requires no disclosure of this information... because preexisting conditions aren't an issue.
There are likely other lies, but that one jumped out at me because Jon Stewart recently covered that exchange (between Barton and Pallone) on his program (Pallone called the hearings a "monkey court").
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