This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, Affordable Care Act Edition - The American Propect

[cbayer]

http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2011&base_name=this_is_why_we_cant_have_nice


BY PAUL WALDMAN | POSTED 09/23/2011 AT 09:58 AM


Last night’s Republican debate was interesting for many reasons, but the thing that made me angriest was this, from Herman Cain:

CAIN: The reason I said that I would be dead under Obamacare is because my cancer was detected in March of 2006. From March 2006 all the way to the end of 2006, for that number of months, I was able to get the necessary CAT scan tests, go to the necessary doctors, get a second opinion, get chemotherapy, go—get surgery, recuperate from surgery, get more chemotherapy in a span of nine months. If we had been under Obamacare and a bureaucrat was trying to tell me when I could get that CAT scan that would have delayed my treatment. My surgeons and doctors have told me that because I was able get the treatment as fast as I could, based upon my timetable and not the government’s timetable that’s what saved my life, because I only had a 30 percent chance of survival. And now I’m here five years cancer free, because I could do it on my timetable and not a bureaucrat’s timetable.

You will not be surprised to learn that the crowd whooped and hollered its approval. I have no doubt that the typical Republican voter actually believes that when the Affordable Care Act is implemented, every time one of the nation’s nearly one million practicing physicians wants to perform a procedure or prescribe a medicine, they’ll have to literally place a call to Washington and get permission from some stingy bureaucrat. Forget about not understanding the Affordable Care Act; these people don’t understand what “insurance” is and how it works.

Why do they believe that? Because people like Herman Cain keep telling them so. I don’t know whether Cain is an ignoramus or a liar, but it has to be at least one, maybe both. He stood on a stage, looked into the camera, and told people that under the ACA, doctors will have to get permission from government bureaucrats for every procedure, and treatment of illnesses will proceed not according to the recommendations of medical professionals but on “the government’s timetable.” You might say, “Well, nobody would be dumb enough to actually believe that,” but you’d be so, so, wrong. It’s not just Cain. If you’re a conservative, you hear this kind of thing from politicians you like and trust, you hear it when you turn on Fox News and watch TV personalities you like and trust, and you hear it from radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh that you like and trust. You’ve heard it hundreds and hundreds of times. Were someone to tell you that it’s not just false but spectacularly, insanely false, you wouldn’t listen for a second.


a little more at link

[COLGATE4]

1. Rethugs have taken Josef Goebbel's lessons about the big lie

to heart and proving him right about crowd manipulation. Tell Big Lie-rinse-repeat. They've been at it with a vengance since Clinton.

[truth2power]

3. What the hell is he talking about? n/t

[rurallib]

2. hard to believe Cain could run a business

part of being a business leader is being able to sort the lies from the truth and then acting on facts, not lies or rumors.

[sunwyn]

4. I wonder how his regular everyday employees at Godfathers Pizza would fare

with their insurance if any?

[jtrockville]

5. Vs now, where a doc needs say-so from the bean counter

Why are they so willing to ignore the (not theoretical, but actual) drawbacks of the "system" we have now?

[Honeycombe8]

6. As I've posted before, Americans believe all sorts of things about the Act because they are hearing

from only the anti-healthcare-reform-act side.

I didn't see any Democrats on TV this morning denying that what Cain said is true about the Act. I thought to myself, "I didn't know the Act had provisions in it that would affect regular employer-provided insurance coverage." Does it? Doesn't it? I don't know. The Democrats seem to be making a point of not discussing it.

[cbayer]

8. Excellent point. The information is out there, and I try to find and post it, but the MSM

virtually ignores all of it and the Democratic leadership is doing nothing that I can see to promote the good news.

Very frustrating.

In the meantime, this guy can spout the biggest load of BS I have heard yet about this plan and people just eat it up.

:banghead:

[RockaFowler]

9. Repukes don't want to hear the truth, though

I've seen it on other sites. You give it to them in black and white and nope I don't believe it. Either they are delusional or they are actually that stupid

[madamesilverspurs]

7. Uh huh. And here's the GOP plan:

-

[treestar]

10. The doctor would be able to order the tests and treatment

for people who would get nothing now. That's what makes me sick about the complaint that it would somehow inconvenience those who already are among the haves. He left out the part where it's more important that he get treatment fast than that poor people get treatment at all. Those people should just die so that he doesn't have to risk any delays.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. I don't like the Obama health care plan, because it's based on private insurance, BUT...

I can clearly see the propaganda number that the Republicanites have done on the American people, since right-wingers repeatedly refer to "government health care" despite repeated corrections.