Tuesday, December 17, 2013

When You Use a Word, It Means What I Choose it to Mean

The Affordable Care Act has been talked to death by the conservative naysayers, and they were positively gleeful at the inexcusably incompetent roll-out. The Republicans in Congress were more than happy to pronounce the ACA as dead on arrival.

Now that, by most accounts, the federal web portal is working, the radical conservatives have resorted to mostly unsubstantiated anecdotal instances of ACA glitches. They rail against the ACA, but have still offered no rational alternatives, and also obstruct the implementation of expanded Medicaid on the state level in Republican governed states. Ideology before the health of the citizenry.

But, that's the same stupid citizenry that keeps electing these bozos without regard to their own self interest. Calling the constituency stupid may be a tad harsh, but how else to explain the last remaining ACA complaint that still seems to have traction? The 'complaint' that "If you like your plan, you can keep it," was a 'lie' told to the nation by President Obama.

The ACA is a major new piece of legislation, designed to make health insurance available to millions more people than the previous system ever could. By establishing new standards and rules, insurance companies would no longer be able to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. It would allow coverage of children up to age 26 on their parents policies, and establish a minimum standard of care and coverage.

That last part is where the bozos rear their heads. The minimum standard of care and coverage tells what is required to be covered by insurance companies under the ACA. Policies that didn't meet this standard would not be permitted. The insurance companies would have to increase their coverage on these sub-standard policies. What was not taken into account, was that some stupid, stupid people would actually want to retain these substandard policies. When these policies were 'cancelled', to be replaced by superior policies with better coverage, well, holy hell broke loose.

"PRESIDENT OBAMA LIED!" was the battle cry. "PRESIDENT OBAMA SAID WE COULD KEEP OUR POLICIES IF WE LIKED THEM!"

This infantile braying from the radical conservatives is as bone headed as it is idiotic. If President Obama felt that people would want to keep the inferior policies that the ACA was created to change and improve, perhaps he would have chosen a different rhetorical style while campaigning for the new law. But when you really stop to think about it, why would any rational person wish to keep an inferior policy that provides legally inadequate coverage?

The stonewalling, obstructionist, radical conservative and, let's face it, racist opposition President Obama has dealt with during his entire presidency, is the reason that we have been in this vacuum of poor governance since his inauguration. The ACA lunacy is just the latest example.


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