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
/johnny
I love how all the libs are tying themselves into intellectual knots declaring Obama didn’t lie about Obamacare. Keep it up guys..it is amusing.
LOL! No doubt. “FOOD FIGHT!!!!”
just proves that liberals are losing the argument. they actually need cheat sheets full of half truths and distortions in order to fight for their beliefs. Conservatives just open their eyes and explain the real world.
Clearly, they are afraid.... they still want to pretend their Emperor still has clothes.
Once again, compelling evidence that modern liberalism has a deep immaturity at its core.
I am predicting an uptick in family violence today.
My sister-in-law had a framed picture of Obama in her home. She worked on “proofreading” textbooks for Pearson.
She is far, far away.
As I used to say to my children in their younger days when they wanted me to believe something outrageous, “Is my moron light on?”
I’d be polite and say, “Well,,,, I could agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.”
I'm with you. I went through stages. Now, I do not want to argue. Enough! But I do want to discourage. I want Dem voters to despair. I want those idiots to stay home on election day with their Dem friends and watch Oprah or something. Example:
Obama is a lying loser and the Democrats are going to get slaughtered in November of 2014.
“Are corporations people?”
You would think that corporations would be a socialists’ wet dream (True incorporation not the crony capitalism that is practiced by many corporate businesses and modern liberals alike. Funny how they do not have complaints about the subsidization of “Green” corporations.)
People get together, usually anonymously, to pool their resources for the betterment of themselves and mankind (I say mankind, because if the business venture does not fulfill a need they fail).
“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.”
Is anyone in government really legally held responsible? Isn’t federalilsm a sort of corporatism? Seemingly the Sec of state and the president enjoy limited lilability over their actions or inactions in Benghazi. If corporations can’t speak, a body of investors who have pooled resources, how cana government speak, another body who pools resources.
This is a perfect opportunity to wake our liberal family members up!
++++++++++
Is that you Don Quixote?
The Great Uniter tutors his class.. on inciting civil disrest.
Good God, Obama,, give us a break.
What a great way to test Obamacare, when the liberal is at the hospital, getting a size 12 boot removed from their lower GI.
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Aha, the famous “Three Legged Trip To The Hospital” solution....
A belly laugh indeed next they will argue that Hitler was a nice guy.
My thinking has it that the $$$$$ now flowing from printing presses is being used to, among other things, buy "Dow Average" stocks to make things look good.
The Great Depression (I was there) is said to have started when markets crashed in 1929, and it might be that the earlier created Federal Reserve system was somewhat behind the 1920 BOOM days that are similar to the stock market BOOM we now have.
Folks, another stock market crash is coming.
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