Medical professionals’ knowledge vs. tea party hallucinations about Obamacare

I get an absolutely ridiculous amount of email every day and a goodly amount of it comes from folks recommending things for me to write about or from one of the various organizations that I subscribe to. I also subscribe to some right wing groups, just so I can get a pulse on what they are going on about at any given time.

This past week I received two emails that were essentially about the same thing. One pointed me to an amazing interview of two medical professionals by my dear friend Betsy de Parry. In it, they talk about the Affordable Care Act (ACA or “Obamacare”) and what it really means to Americans.

The other was yet another freakout passel of lies and fabrications about the ACA from the Tea Party of West Michigan.

The two emails could not have been in starker contrast. More after the jump.

Seriously, Mitt, can’t you go just a couple hours without being a total dick?

After writing not one but TWO pieces about the utter dickishness of Mitt Romney toward African Americans yesterday, I took a few hours off to go to a summer birthday party [Happy 30th, Jesse! Nice party, Jaimie!] “It’s not like he’s going to be more of a dick today after all of that, right?” I thought to myself.

I could not have been more wrong.

Last night, a pool report came out quoting Mitt Romney talking about being booed by the NAACP crowd in Houston and describing supporters of the Affordable Care Act as just “wanting more free stuff” from the government.

Too stupid to vote???

Despite the fact that most Americans want Republicans to move on (pdf) and quit fighting a battle they’ve already lost, House Republicans spent the day debating the repeal the Affordable Care Act, a waste of time and taxpayer money given that it’ll never get out of the Senate much less be signed into law by President Obama. The vote tomorrow will be 31st time they’ve done this. In light of that, it’s worth having a look at what Obama-haters in the hinterlands are saying and thinking.

I was perusing the Letters to the Editor page at the Livingston County Press and Argus today and came across this letter, written by a person so detached from facts and reality that it’s almost insulting that they printed it.

This letter shows just exactly what we’re up against heading into the November election.

Sorry, face. This nose has GOT to go…

Tea party types in Michigan, facing the stinging blow of the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the constitution, are now working on a self-defeating effort to make sure that Michigan doesn’t create a health insurance exchange for Michiganders to shop for affordable health insurance. This comical effort apparently disregards the fact that, if they are successful, the federal government will create one FOR us, limiting our state legislators’ ability to have any say or control in the matter.

This is from an email I received yesterday from the Tea Party of West Michigan (all typos and grammatical errors are theirs, not mine – like the grammatically incorrect tagline at the top of every page on their website: “Influence policy, effect elections, protect the Constitution”)…

[Email and more after the jump.]

Shoot ’em up, shoot ’em up, rah, rah, rah!

For some on the right, this whole “every American having access to healthcare coverage” thing is just too goddam much. I wrote yesterday about some of the instant freakout responses. Today we have another and it’s a doozy.

Former Republican Party spokesman and Lansing “civil rights” attorney Matthew Davis sent out a press release titled “Is Armed Rebellion Now Justified?”.

His press release and more after the jump.

Going off of the rails on the crazy train…

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over two years since the Affordable Care Act, our beloved Obamacare, was signed into law. After all, the sky is still up, right?

Today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of Obamacare is exactly what happens when the right challenges the constitutionality of a law that was supported, endorsed, and championed by a president who is a constitutional scholar: they get their asses handed to them. The result has been predictable, even if the SCOTUS ruling was not.

Much more after the jump.

A fool and his money…

How does this make sense? Aetna Insurance company inadvertently revealed that it has donated $10 million to two groups, the US Chamber of Commerce and the American Action Network in 2011.

Both groups are actively fighting the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”.) But the insurance industry LOVES the ACA? Why? Because the individual mandate part of it ensures them a giant pool of money.

Oops.

This something the Republicans do NOT want you to know

A report from the trustees of the Medicare system this week has created a major kerfuffle in the mediasphere. While Democrats point to the fact that there has been no change in the insolvency date of Medicare from last year’s report, Republicans are spinning it to suggest that President Obama is a failure because he didn’t miraculously solve all the problems in the system in a single year.

Here’s something the Republicans do NOT want you to know, however: Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, taxpayers will save over $200 Billion through 2016.

It’s true (pdf).

We can’t afford not to. Republicans like to pretend that poor people get rich off the government. As if that makes sense. 99 percent of Republicans do or will depend on the social safety net at some point in their lives. Like most Americans, they’re one illness from poverty, one illness from never being able to afford health insurance on […]

Drinking the “tea” in Michigan

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has an op-ed in today’s Detroit News regarding the Supreme Court case involving the Affordable Care Act that reads like a tea party manifesto. He appears to representing the small number of Michiganders that call themselves tea partiers while the rest of us have our views disregarded.

He describes it as “an unprecedented power grab” and says it “ends limitations on federal powers”. Neither of these things are true and, as LOLGOP said earlier today, the vast majority of SCOTUS watchers believe they will uphold the ACA as constitutional.

Supreme Court to decide if being smart about health care is constitutional. The fact is: We’re already mandated to pay for our fellow Americans’ health care. The question is: Will we be mandated to pay for our own? This week the Affordable Care Act faces its first big challenge of the year. The Supreme Court will hear arguments about the […]