Shakezula over at Lawyers, Guns & Money, wrote, Predictable Predictions — ObamaCare Edition. It’s about two conservative predictions about Obamacare: that it would cause employers to cut hours so that they didn’t have to provide health insurance; and that the Medicaid expansion would lead to job cuts. As Shakezula noted, “Two predictably wrong predictions.” But I have to admit to being totally exhausted by the whole thing.
Of course the predictions were wrong. The people who made them never intended for them to prove to be right. This is how the Republican Party works. They have thrown every possible negative consequence at Obamacare hoping that something would stick. Note: stick, not be right. It is the tactical use of fear. And the Republicans are brilliant at it. They aren’t involved in rational debate. They are rather involved in a kind of anti-apologetics where they are just trying make the best sounding argument for what they believe on faith (or for other reasons regardless).
The Republicans were never afraid that Obamacare wouldn’t work. They talked about it failing all the time, of course. That was their major argument against it: that it was a big government program destined to fail. But if that were the case, they could have stood back and watched it fall. But they haven’t done that because their great fear all along has been that it would succeed.
And look what those losers in Congress finally managed to do. After almost six years and over 50 votes to repeal, the Republican controlled Congress managed to send a repeal bill to President Obama. Obama, of course, will veto it, and they know it. But this is what passes for success among the Republicans: a slightly less humiliating defeat. But I guess the real thing they are doing is sending a message: elect a Republican president this year and people like me can be totally screwed.
Sarah Kliff and Soo Oh at Vox put together a great chart, Here’s How Much Obamacare Has Cut the Uninsured Rate in Every State. The only state where the uninsured rate has gone up is in bright red Wyoming. This may be why Wyoming is currently discussing accepting the Medicaid expansion. But this isn’t just about the Medicaid expansion. Lots of states that didn’t expand Medicaid are seeing uninsured rates go down because of the exchanges. Texas has seen its uninsured rate go down by roughly a quarter. So I guess it’s really important to repeal Obamacare and stop these positive outcomes.
The conservative movement is based mostly on the idea of hatred. Conservatives see the world about winners and losers. They are like those people who whine about little league baseball where everyone gets a trophy. “What’s the point of playing a game if there isn’t a clear winner and loser?!” I’ve never understood this, but to the conservative brain it seems axiomatic. So if the poor don’t suffer, the game of life is not being played properly.
What makes humans most amazing as a species is not our big brains; other species have impressive brains. What we are great at is communication. And what has really allowed us to advance is the storage of information. This is why science operates at a breakneck speed. And as a result of this, we don’t have to worry so much about evolutionary pressures. We can control our birthrates. We can feed everyone. We can see to it that everyone has a reasonably contented life. Or we could do all these things if we could get the roughly one-third of the human race to stop believing that they can only be happy if others are miserable.
The Republican Party has taken it to a whole new extreme where they want to see the vast majority of people suffer so that the rich and power can feel just a little bit better about how awesome they are. The Republicans in Congress want to see to it that I don’t have healthcare; meanwhile, a bunch of terrorists think that the federal government is a tyranny because it won’t give rich people free land. The American conservative movement is such an amazing combination of evil and stupid that it’s hard to imagine outside of satire.
My employer at the time (a community college in South Carolina) told me they cut my hours because they didn’t want to pay for health insurance. My anecdote doesn’t outweigh the data, of course, but it has happened on some occasions. Of course, I was an adjunct, which is an exploitative scam anyway. And the benefits I’ve got from the ACA far outweighs any losses.
I’m sorry! The treatment of adjuncts (and the overuse of them) is an outrage. If they could make you lecture at home and call you self-employed, they would. It used to be that adjuncts were local engineers (in physics, anyway) who filled in mostly because it was fun. Now there are all these full time adjuncts who get paid next to nothing with no benefits. I think at the local JC here, they are paying about a grand per unit. So given 2 hours prep per hour taught, that’s about $20 per hour, which is less than I get for writing at home in my underwear. But it seems the bigger issue is the insecurity of it. They have all the responsibilities of the regular faculty, and almost none of the rights and privileges. I hope you are doing better than this. On the plus side, at least you aren’t making the world a worse place.
I don’t know if you see these old comments, but yes, it was basically the adjunct job turning part-time that prompted me to go back to grad school. Things are touch-and-go, but not bad.
I try to read all comments. I do (now) manage to read all comments responding to me or directly to the article. So I do remember that. I’m glad you are getting by. What I tell myself is, “You may not make much money, but people are paying you to writing fairly interesting things.” It is almost always better to do things you like for little more than things you hate for big money. The big money jobs could lead to early retirement. But I think they destroy your soul by that time.
The Republicans know they will never face a price for lying, for cheating and for stealing.
They also know they will not pay a price for being wrong. So they do whatever they can to prime the pump to make it impossible for the Democrats to get anything done. So even when a flawed program like the ACA is passed, they will claim it will destroy everything in sight like some kind of stomping monster without a care that anyone will hold them to account (as in vote for whatever hapless Democrat runs against them in the gerrymandered district.)
Well, they assume based upon overwhelming evidence. But revolutions are like bankruptcies too: slow and then sudden.
“The Republican Party has taken it to a whole new extreme where they want to see the vast majority of people suffer so that the rich and power can feel just a little bit better about how awesome they are.”
That reminded me what I really think to be true: that in today’s GOP, empathy is a sign of weakness.
I can’t agree more. Somehow empathy=weakness=liberal do-gooders messing with the economy=madness that will destroy us all unless we let pure Market Freedom (TM) dominate.
A few years back, Bob Dole — friggin’ Bob Dole! — tried to get Congress to support an international treaty for people with disabilities. (You’ll recall that Dole was injured in WWII and suffered loss of full use for one of his hands.) Like most international treaties, it was basically a nice symbolic gesture with no enforcement. The Republicans, naturally, shot it down:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/us/despite-doles-wish-gop-rejects-disabilities-treaty.html
Makes sense. If I voted for that law, I’m sure I’d face a campaign ad like this one:
“James Fillmore voted to force your children to use wheelchairs. Next he’ll send troops into your home and replace your print Bible with a Braille edition. Send a message to Washington that we won’t tolerate the special interests of amputees any longer. Vote for Congressman White: he stands for Americans who stand.”
Hahaha, in one of my fights with a colleague I literally printed out the portion and demanded to know what exactly was so objectionable about it. And he said “well not that but you know how they are, they will just decide to do whatever they want anyway.”
I had to admit, kind of hard to argue with that logic.
Absolutely. I think we all “know how they are.” That’s amazing, that you had a colleague utter those words.
(Interestingly, I have it on good authority that in Ankh-Morpok, the phrase “you know how they are” refers to the speaker’s hopeful belief how all is well with fellow beings and life is proceeding as various gods intend. Conversely, the phrase “real Morpokians like us” indicates that the speaker assumes everybody out there is a lying crook.)
Let me just put it this way-I was the smartest person in that building regardless of level. And compared to some of the people on here, I am a drooling idiot.
That’s exactly true. Look at the howling over Obama crying.
And the recent repeal vote reminded me 50th+ time, that Republican alternative to Obamacare is coming any day now, right?
They do have an alternative: the terrible system we had before. That’s what they want. And if they control Washington next year, that’s what they will give us. I suspect they will also throw in a few things to make it even worse like tort “reform” and buying insurance across state lines. Just wait Delaware! Soon you’ll get all the insurance companies too!
It would be nice to have a Democratic alternative to Obamacare, but I don’t expect that to happen within my lifetime.
Neither do I. But if we can get people to vote, I think we can greatly improve Obamacare. And you know, Obamacare could slowly become Medicare for all.
Social Security was terrible when first passed after all.
Well, much worse than it is now. Racist and insufficient. So yeah, over time Obamacare could become amazingly great. I’ve got to give it to the Democrats under Obama: they took a really contentious issue and made the situation much better. I’m not going to sit around being pissed off that we didn’t get a universal system when we got a system that cut the uninsured rate in half. That’s really great. And we keep working.