Posted on 11/28/2013 8:48:49 AM PST by kristinn
Your guide to dealing with relatives with awful views this long weekend. A special "Obamacare train wreck" edition
Once again, Americans everywhere are spending a wonderful day with their families, being thankful for things, and also probably getting trapped wherever they are for days because of storms and mass nationwide flight delays and cancellations. But while family is a wonderful thing, sometimes people in your family hold very different beliefs than you do about important things like race relations and Islam. Once again, I am here with your guide to arguing intelligently, or at least coherently, with your right-wing relations. (Here are my guides from 2012 and 2011.)
As always, I can’t stress this enough: The first rule of arguing with your family members on holidays is don’t argue with your family members on holidays, because let’s all just try to enjoy one another’s company for once, without screaming and name-calling and so on. Many of your older relatives are lied to and scared by evil people on the radio and television, and that is not their fault. It’s usually best to change the subject, or go outside for some fresh air/cigarettes. But if you must, here are some reasonable things to say.
I have a feeling most of the discussions around the table this year will focus on healthcare, so that is what most of this year’s guide is about.
Obamacare is a disaster
I mean, not really, so far. It is still too early to tell, and most Americans believe that the law hasn’t affected them at all. Many of those Americans could be incorrect, as the law has changed how insurance companies treat all of us, regardless of whether we purchase individual insurance or receive it through an employer, but right now “Obamacare” doesn’t mean much to most people. (If you want to run through the benefits, there’s the insurance for young adults through their parents thing, and the preexisting conditions thing, lots of preventative care things are now “free,” and some prescription drugs are cheaper for people on Medicare.)
But yes, the law has its flaws, in its construction and its execution, but so far those flaws aren’t really hurting very many people.
The broken website proves that Obamacare won’t work
The broken website proves that federal IT contracting is a huge, broken mess, but anyone who has ever read anything about federal IT contracting before this already knew that. (So, like, 10 people knew that.) The broken website makes a fine metaphor, but if it’s up and running soon, it won’t have affected all that many people, or doomed the law. And if it’s not fixed soon, well, then there will be some trouble, possibly major trouble, with the individual insurance marketplace and the mandate, but the goal was always to get some uninsured people insured right away, and all the rest of them insured over the course of a few years, so small initial enrollment numbers probably won’t be the disaster everyone is claiming it will be. Basically, wait for the new year before saying HealthCare.gov killed Obamacare.
Canceled insurance policies prove that Obamacare has already failed
So, yes, Obama lied when he said “you can keep your plan,” or at least he omitted all these caveats that he probably assumed were implied in his statement, but the actual villain here, as always, is insurance companies. (No one likes insurance companies, right? Here you can feel free to agree that a healthcare reform bill that relies so heavily on private insurance companies is inherently flawed, it’s too bad we can’t just have Medicare for everyone!) The insurance companies first sold most of these people crappy plans that covered nothing and would’ve left them open to massive bills had they faced any serious medical problem. The insurance companies then decided that, instead of changing their plans to meet the higher standards of coverage required under the ACA, they would cancel all of them. The companies then sent everyone letters saying that their plans had been canceled, and in those letters they attempted to sell more expensive plans to people, without pointing out that many of those people are now eligible for subsidies or able to choose more affordable (and better) plans through other insurers. These “cancellation letters” are primarily sneaky, misleading sales pitches. Multiple state insurance regulators have criticized and fined insurance companies for sending them.
It’s true that millions of people who had currently been in the individual insurance market now face disruption and change, and everyone hates change, but the vast majority of those people were getting ripped off, and lots and lots of them now qualify for better coverage at an affordable rate. Those stories are less “news-worthy” than stories of people facing “rate shock,” though, and so they are less often mentioned on the news.
It’s sort of moot, though, because now insurance companies will be allowed to continue selling those deeply crappy plans to people, though they will have to send everyone a letter explaining how crappy they are.
Obamacare is a violation of religious liberty because Hobby Lobby has to pay for contraception
OK, well, first things first: Are corporations people? Can private, for-profit corporations be said to have a religious faith? A corporation’s founders, its owners, its board of directors or its shareholders all are welcome to practice any religion they choose without government interference, but how does a corporation worship? The entire point of corporations is that they’re separate legal entities from the individuals who make up the corporations — otherwise, limited liability wouldn’t be a thing — and while corporate “free speech” is at least defensible in the sense that corporations can “speak,” there’s no precedent for saying for-profit corporations practice religion.
SNIP
“Yes, and if some so-called “progressive” member of the family brings up Obama’s Thanksgiving table talking points, then they should...”
be told to leave and escorted to the door.
I think that the democrats need a 55 gallon drum of lipstick for this pig.
If I had a lib relative trying to argue Obamacare with me on Thanksgiving, I’d give him a ‘turkey-baster enema’.
Heard some of this yesterday. Do these asshats really think that folks will be doing this? They are really losing it. I also saw(I think somewhere on FR) that the nannie bloomers MAIGgots also have a guide to persuading your errant relatives to give up their evil guns during your Thanksgiving political discussions. These asshats know no shame.
I didn’t invite any lefties to our Thanksgiving Dinner. They don’t celebrate the day, when smoking their pot under the bridge, or taking government bribes.
Other than having their insurance cancelled by the millions, being forced into far more expensive plans with worse benefits, not having their preferred doctors available on the new plans, and... Oh, right, and a massive expansion of people sponging off the taxpayers.
ask the democrats :
Why do you trust government?
ask them that in front of everyone at the dinner table.
and also :
why is it so cold on Thanksgiving when your news media and your government have been yelling “global warming” for 30 years? still trust gov and the news media?
This piece could more accurately be entitled “Defending the Indefensible.”
Salon still publishing?
I read something at the Huffington Post yesterday that said this was a really bad idea.
I had a belly laugh just reading the headline. I don’t need to read the article.
Well, so far, it looks like the responses are “It’s somebody else’s fault” and “It’s really not that bad”. Those are always winning arguments.
This is a great example of the Obama Minions trying, in vain, to polish turds.
Oh man I sure do hope that I encounter someone stupid enough to attempt these stalking points.
Bingo! Single Payer (a nice-sounding name for Government Heath Care) is their dream
I do not allow left-wing marxist trash into my home voluntarily under any circumstance...I don’t care who they are.
When I finally realized that I had little in common with my liberal relatives I stopped associating with them. Last year when my cousin came out of the closest it was the last straw. No liberals at my Thanksgiving this year.
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