Saturday, February 22, 2014

The Koch Brothers Lie, The Koch Brothers Lie! -- Part the Infinity


(Note. I credit Charles P. Pierce, Esquire blogger, with the "part the infinity" tag, though I've seen at least one other use it. Anyway, thanks, Charles, I can't find a better way of putting it.)

Also, if I'm noting things, it's the conservative GOP that lies about Obamacare; he Koch brothers are just the most joyous to bankroll the wide broadcast of the lies. Again, if money is speech, then it's the Kochs that have the biggest potty mouths.

To the point: First at Daily Kos and then at the LA Times, people of sound mind and good character are doing their best to see if there actually are any real Obamacare horror stories or whether they're ALL made up.

Good question. Actual Obamacare horror stories are hard to find:
But when Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post checked out her story, he found it didn't hold up. The Affordable Care Act provided her with cheaper coverage than she had before, while allowing her to keep her doctor and maintain her treatment. Kessler didn't mention it, but Boonstra plainly benefits from another provision of the ACA: the ban on exclusions for preexisting conditions. Patients living in the pre-ACA world of individual health insurance with conditions like leukemia were constantly in danger of losing their coverage and becoming uninsurable. That's not legal anymore.
Boonstra's case is just the latest of a very long line of deflatable horror stories. We've debunked a passel of them here, from Florida resident Diane Barrette, who didn't realize she'd been empowered by the ACA to move from a costly junk insurance plan to a cheaper real insurance plan; to Los Angeles real estate agent Deborah Cavallaro, whose "unaffordable" premiums turned out to be eminently affordable; to San Diego business owner Edie Sundby, whose cancer coverage was safeguarded by Obamacare after her insurer bailed out on her for financial reasons; to "Bette," the supposed victim trotted out by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers  (R-Wash.) in her response to the State of the Union message last month, and who turned out to be an ACA "victim" because she couldn't be bothered actually to investigate her options for affordable care on the Washington state enrollment website.
And there are many more, including the extremely dubious personal narratives of House Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Tom Coburn.
What a lot of these stories have in common are, first of all, a subject largely unaware of his or her options under the ACA or unwilling to determine them; and, second, shockingly uninformed and incurious news reporters, including some big names in the business, who don't bother to look into the facts of the cases they're offering for public consumption. (I'm talking about you, Maria Bartiromo.)
In the last paragraph we have the real conundrum: Why do news organizations -- other that Fox, of course -- parroting Republican talking points and made-up stories even for a minute? Closer examination has so far revealed a ridiculous pattern of recurring bullshit. It's a Lucy-pulls-the-football-at-the-last-moment-on-poor-Charlie-Brown sort of pattern, only the reporters apparently don't give a shit.

Why? Probably because even their editors don't expect them to correct their mistakes. Why? Because such behavior is baked into the cake! Lamestream media!

"Say, boys, why didn't the boss print my Obamacare horror story? The nerve!

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