We all know about the Republican support for a health care system that gouges patients, fails to serve at-risk constituencies, and enriches heartless corporations (who in turn enrich the Republicans). We know about the right-wing’s indifference to families who are thrust into bankruptcy due to exorbitant medical bills. And we are all too aware of the Tea Party conservatives’ fixation on repealing the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), which they have voted on thirty-seven times in the House of Representatives knowing full well it would never advance to the senate.
There is no ambiguity in the fact that the GOP is determined to defend a broken system that favors the rich and abandons everyone else to a Randian law of the jungle that guarantees that people will die unnecessarily. And Fox News is a critical component in the anti-health propaganda fest designed to keep the American people ignorant and sick.
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In recent days Fox News has been escalating their disinformation campaign by attacking uncontroversial plans to give the American people information about their options under the new law and to educate them about the health insurance exchanges that will be launching next year. Fox has taken the side of the GOP anti-health zealots by criticizing routine efforts to provide the public with details about the program.
Reports that the Department of Health and Human Services is seeking to publicize the availability of insurance plans by advertising and otherwise partnering with sports leagues, libraries, and schools have been met with ludicrous objections from the right. They have characterized these efforts as communist-style indoctrination and tyrannical coercion, even though they are nothing more than free market publicity. Fox News anchor Bret Baier went so far as to call it “threatening.”
Bret Baier: Forget reading, writing and arithmetic, you are paying about a million dollars to train public school children in California how to promote President Obama’s health care reform law. […] Officials are promising – or threatening – strict enforcement of the grants with monthly, quarterly, and annual reports.
Holy crap! Now the feds want reports to ascertain whether federal grant money is being used effectively. What’s next, concentration camps?
Other plans being discussed include working with the NFL and the NBA to educate citizens about their options. This has been lambasted by right-wingers on Fox who seem to think that providing information to citizens about programs that they are entitled to use is the work of Satan. They call it propaganda, but it is no more propaganda than public service announcements about seat belts or the dangers of drug use.
The only propaganda here is that employed by Fox News who is trying desperately to misrepresent ObamaCare and the efforts to educate the public about it. Their arguments against publicity campaigns that work with sports leagues, schools, and libraries, consist mainly of phony attempts to turn it all into a political debate. However, ObamaCare is not a political debate – it is the law. And consequently, people are entitled to know what it is and how to use it. There is nothing partisan about that.
What Fox and the GOP are hoping to do is to sabotage the new health care law. They want it to fail (like everything else this administration tries to do) so that they can achieve their goal of repeal and restore the previous system that made them all rich, but that left millions of Americans without coverage. And the best way to produce failure is to make sure that the American people are kept ignorant of the program, which would keep enrollment down. So any effort by the government to let the people know what their options are must be shot down by any means necessary.
This campaign of deceit by Fox and their benefactors is meant only to harm citizens who may be interested in improving health care for themselves and their families. It is not an effort to persuade anyone of the political merits of the plan. It merely informs people of what is currently available. But the anti-health right prefers that the nation be kept as ignorant as possible. That’s something that is apparent to any objective person who watches Fox News. But in this case, the result is not merely being ill-informed, it can lead to serious repercussions for the medical well-being of innocent citizens who are more interested in the health of their families than the phony political controversies that Fox is trying to create.
Fox is embarking on a shameful exercise in greed over humanity. And even Fox viewers should be concerned that their network is working so hard to make sure they stay stupid.
Maybe if we keep enrollment down, it will actually be affordable long term….although I would prefer everyone possible get’s involved so, if it’s doable, we can bankrupt the government sooner.
I hope you get cancer. That’s all I have to say.
Those goals noted are already in place – this is just piling on – if you take all our future liabilities we’re already bankrupt – so the deed is done. If you really cared about your precious government, you would support actual sustainable programs vs what we have.
Your response is one of my favorite liberal counters – wishing cancer on those you hate, which is everyone who doesn’t believe what you believe.
“Those goals noted are already in place – this is just piling on – if you take all our future liabilities we’re already bankrupt ”
Another conservative who doesn’t understand the basics of accounting, budgeting, or governing but wants to “bankrupt the government” because something something. You’ve sure added a lot to this comment thread, Uninformed Steve in York
I’m sure you believe what you do because to believe anything else would be to refute all of progressivism – I’ve got my weaknesses, but one of them ISN’T math.
We’ll see, but I’m sure in the end the math will prove me right and the government will not be able to pay it’s debts or promises with anything except massively inflated dollars. Pull the sack back over your head and continue living in the land of rainbows and unicorns.
FOX is definitely being passive aggressive and demonstrating false outrage here. However, it seems the size of this education program underscores the complexity of what was marketed as a simple deal — if you like your insurance, you can keep it. If you don’t or want to change or need to buy insurance, you can go into the market or choose one of the exchanges.
I guess the devil is in the details. We’ll see how excited we all will all be after we are finally all educated on Obamacare.
Can you cite a single example of this ever being marketed as a “simple deal?”
From the start it has been regarded a complex endeavor as would be expected of any new program as expansive as this. And people need to be informed about something that has never before been available. This is a huge project, and anyone who has ever implemented such a thing knows that.
President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and countless Democrats have downplayed not only the enormity of this undertaking and the impact it will have on the majority of Americans, but the ultimate cost.
As I stated above, this has always been marketed as simple:
1. If you like your insurance, you can keep it
2. If you don’t, you can choose your own from the open market or an exchange
3. Those who cannot afford it will receive a subsidy
4. Those who don’t participate will have to pay a fine
5. This will provide affordable health care for Americans who might otherwise not have health care coverage.
That sounds pretty simple to me.
More than anything else, I’m interested in watching the spin that this educational process is going to take. After all, to use Nancy Pelosi’s terminology, we will now be able to see what is really in the bill since the fog of the controversy surrounding the bill has lifted.
There is nothing in any of that that is evidence that the health care act was marketed as “simple.” Those are just off-have descriptions of some of the benefits. They have no bearing on how the program would be implemented or the complexity of it.
You are really reaching for justification. The shear size of the legislation is evidence of its complexity and no one has ever tried to diminish that.
I disagree, but for argument’s sake, please bestow us with evidence to the contrary — marketing by the administration that Obamacare is a very complex piece of legislation and will require extraordinary efforts to educate the American public on its implementation.
Well, I’ll take your clumsy attempt to shift the burden of proof to me for a debate that you initiated as evidence of your admission that you can’t defend your position.
And not that I need to prove anything, but you might want to take a look at this.
Mark,
Clumsy as I may be, I provided direct evidence from the President’s lips (and those of his minions) of how Obamacare was marketed.
I know you don’t have to prove anything, but is an obscure article from Opinion Page of the NY Times on May 29, 2013 evidence of the administration’s marketing of Obamacare? Wow!
Moreover, did you make an inadvertent revelation that The Gray Lady is, in fact, a marketing arm of the Obama Administration? And you call me clumsy.
John, I don’t think the fog surrounding this new law has been lifted. It will probably collapse under the weight of its complexity – or at least I hope it does. Also, I would like to see you top someone hoping I get cancer…
Fox is not passive aggressive.Fox is aggressive on attacking everything the Obama administration want to accomplish. They omit facts in their reporting that don’t align with the conservative,GOP,Tea Party, right wing view point. It is what it is a propaganda network for the republican and far right radicals.The IRS is not a scandal The real SCANDAL IS THE U.S HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES VOTING TO REPEAL THE AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE ACT aka OBAMA-CARE 37 TIMES. They earned the title DO NOTHING CONGRESS.
The first two paragraphs of this post describe what the republicans, and therefore by default Fox, think of any kind of national health policy that may benefit ordinary citizens perfectly. Look at what the republicans are doing with women’s health in states like Ohio and Texas where these Neanderthals control the state governments. Their behavior is absolutely criminal. They can try to suppress the information all they want but it will get out and the people will like it better than what they had or didn’t have before. Opposing Obamacare is going to become less and less politically appealing as people become informed and educated about it and that is what they fear most!
No, the fear is that we continue down this government social welfare path to the poor house, which is inevitable. Too much government, too little freedom – which is the path we’re on with laws like this. I’m sure we’ll all be a lot poorer in the long run, which is the typical end result of government entitlements such as this.
Chicken Littles, all of you conservatives. Afraid of the future. How much treasure was flushed down the john for Incurious George’s overseas adventure in Iraq? Were you fearful and outraged about that too? Or do you only become fearful and outraged when you feel that somehow you are paying for some undeserving person’s kidney dialysis? What a humanitarian.
The NFL is a sports league. It is not a lobbying firm or a PR firm. The NFL should remain in the football business, and not venture into the propaganda business.
Oh yes, Obamacare and The NFL have one thing in common. Neither are or will be affordable to the common man.
Let me tell everybody how bad it is at my grandpaws house,he just sits and bellyack about obamo and all the libs,he will run you down just to here rush limpdingy on the radio,i just want to go outsid and hang myself on the big tree out back.but i know in my heart someday i wont remember any of this silly crap grandpaw loves.
Well, SOMEBODY remembered to take his stupid pill today and he washed it down with the Kool-aid. Mark, it sounds to me like you’re one of those Obama-believers who’s bought into that “free healthcare for one and all” propaganda. Please. Let me know how that works out for you. No. Seriously. I wanna see if you’re still singin’ the same song this time next year. Oh. by the way.
I don’t remember it ever being promoted that way at all, except as a conservative smear. Your stupid pills apparently never run out of refills.
Memories…how fondly we remember things from our past through the frosty prism of our political or philosophical leanings.
Try bestowing us with facts depicting the Obama administration marketing the ACA as complicated, difficult to implement, requiring lots of resources to educate people, that it would be implemented timely, etc.
If you can’t, you fell for it, too!
You went off-topic, probably on purpose.