Let's Make it REAL SIMPLE for the Deplorables, okay?

[TygrBright]

To them, "Repealing Obamacare" sounds GOOD! It means they won't have to pay a penalty if they keep not having insurance, they won't see more rate hikes (heck, they expect their premiums to go DOWN,) their taxes will go down because those "undeserving" people will stop getting freebies, they won't have to scratch their heads trying to figure out all the complicated implications of the "silver" versus "gold" plans and what the different kinds of deductibles are, and they won't have to worry about whether the doctor they like will stop taking their insurance, and a whole lot more delusional bullshit.

Yes, it's delusional bullshit, but they believe it.

Because, let's face it, the ACA is COMPLICATED. It does have some downsides (mostly as a result of GOP whining and compromises and court cases and so on, but they're there and they do hurt.)

So when they hear "repeal Obamacare" they jump for joy because a) That will "fix" everything that's wrong with their current health care and b) it'll stick it to that uppity Kenyan who stole the WHITE House for the last 8 years.

::sigh::

We have to stop saying that repealing the ACA is bad, repealing Obamacare is going to hurt people, they'll be sorry, blah-blah-blah, and reduce it to simple, easy-to-grasp one-liners:

Repeal is the GOP giving your insurance company permission to drop you if you get sick.

Repeal brings back the prescription drug "donut hole" for seniors on Medicare.

Repeal will allow your insurance company to stop offering any plans you might qualify for.

Repeal will remove rate hike caps and make your next rate increase BIGGER.

Repeal will let insurance companies stop covering anyone with a "pre-existing condition."

Repeal will let many health care providers "balance bill" you for whatever insurance refuses to pay.

Repeal will crowd the hospital emergency rooms with uninsured people seeking care.

Repeal will kick your children off your policy when they turn eighteen, leaving them uncovered.

Repeal restores lifetime limits on insurance benefits, when you hit them, you're uncovered.

Repeal takes away your free preventive care.

I prefer pounding ONE of these one-liners at a time, but they could also be bullet-pointed under "10 Ways the GOP Congress Wants to Screw You by Repealing ACA/Obamacare"

The main thing is to KEEP IT SIMPLE.

They don't have much cognitive capability, your average Deplorable.

wearily,
Bright

[Warpy]

1. To idiots, "repeal Obamacare" means "repeal Obama."

They're far too stupid to care about anything else.

I'm gearing up to say "you got exactly what you voted for, dumbass!" a lot.

[TygrBright]

3. I say "You broke it, we're all stuck with it, asshole." n/t

[pangaia]

34. Many of them want OBAMACARE repealed, but want to keep their ACA insurance.

[progressoid]

37. The stupid. It burns.

[guillaumeb]

2. Recommemnded. These one sentence reasons are great for letters to the Eeditor also.

[TygrBright]

5. Thanks. It has to be E-for-easy to grasp. In a single click/glance. n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. How about the GOP wants to take away your health care and let you die?

[TygrBright]

6. To them, that's just more "Librul scaremongering." They won't believe it.

You have to be SPECIFIC.

About something that applies to THEM.

So-- talking to parents? Use the preventive care, and losing coverage at 18 lines. Talking to seniors? Remind them of the beloved 'donut hole.' Talking to someone with an oxy canister or a mobility scooter? Use the pre-existing condition or the lifetime limits line.

They use hyperbole and scare-mongering so much themselves, they project it onto everyone. Simple truths like "they want to take away your health care and let you die" sound like that, to them.

helpfully,
Bright

[jimlup]

7. They will be happy as a fresh shit

until they get sick.

[Hoyt]

8. It can't be any plainer than that. But I think GOPers mainly want to disassociate Health Care from

Obama. After all, according to those bashing Obama here months ago, the ACA was the Republican plan all along, and Obama was a POS for pushing it through.

I don't know how we do it, but if we somehow changed the moniker to White Wing Care, the deplorables would be fine with it and would feel Trump had fulfilled his promise.

Whatever GOPers do, in the end we are going to have something very similar to Obamacare. Maybe there will be vouchers instead of direct subsidies -- not much difference there. Maybe people will no longer purchase health insurance through the Exchanges, but directly from something with a seal of approval from White Wing Care (again, not much difference).

[lark]

38. Actually, vouchers are way different and are very bad.

With vouchers there will be no allowables (contractual adjustments), they just give you a set amount to pay for primary care, then the patient pays the balance. The physicians would not be given any price controls, so in the above example, patients' voucher paid $100, but the dr. demanded an additional $140 to see the patient. I have seen plans, previous to ACA, that paid $100 towards primary care visits and nothing at all for hospitalizations and they didn't have any price controls. Vouchers would destroy us and very quickly without price controls. You know Repugs aren't going to keep the price controls, that's anathema to them.

[Hoyt]

39. Vouchers are a subsidy for premiums. Have nothing to do with contractual adjustment to inflated

charges, etc. You would select a "GOPer Health Plan," with a premium of say $500/month and the government would issue a voucher for a given level of subsidy (either a piece of paper or electronic payment to the health plan). That is no different from a subsidy. Not saying I like the idea, but that would not be a big change to Obamacare.

I don't think Tom Price's idea of allowing balance billing has a chance in hell of flying unless the government were to approve traditional indemnity plans as "GOPer Approved."

[brush]

9. This is great info. Mind if I use it?

Also, mind if I put "Repeal takes away your free preventive care" up higher on the list?

Although they love to regurgitate the repug talking point about POCs want free stuff, the deplorables themselves love free stuff (as long as it's for them only).

[TygrBright]

10. Use it, use it! That's what it's for. Reorder it as you wish! n/t

[gratuitous]

11. My short answer

Okay, it's possible that the Affordable Care Act isn't working as smoothly and nicely for you as it does for millions of others across the country. Every major piece of legislation needs to be tweaked, either in the enabling regulations or by legislative amendment. The ACA has not been changed in the years Republicans have controlled Congress, and those same Republicans actively worked to make the ACA worse and to deny coverage and assistance for people in many states.

You may have a legitimate beef; but shouldn't you be mad at the party and people who tried to make your life worse, instead of the ones who tried to make it better?

[Skittles]

12. here is what I think

they could know all that and STILL want ACA to be repealed, because it was an OBAMA ACHIEVEMENT

RACISM OVERRIDES COMMON SENSE

heck, if they HAD any sense they wouldn't BE racist

[2naSalit]

13. +1!!

[Maven]

30. TRUTH nt

[brush]

31. Bingo! Your last line says it all.

"heck, if they HAD any sense they wouldn't BE racist

[Vinca]

14. You're forgetting something.

They also believe their lord and savior, Donald J. Trump, will save them. It's a cult that is based on hating Obama and really has little to do with health insurance coverage.

[Hekate]

15. I swear, I just can't get over the woman whose husband needs a liver transplant & they voted for DT

Sure, they were pleased enough to finally get health coverage after years and years of doing without. Sure, it was a good thing they discovered his liver had given out and was going to kill him. Sure, he had been on a medication for many years with a known liver-adverse side effect, but before ACA they couldn't afford the blood tests 3 or 4 times a year that would have revealed a problem and allowed for a change in meds.

And yet, when asked why they voted for Trump knowing he had vowed to repeal the ACA, she said, "We didn't think he really meant it. After all, it's a law now, and they can't change the law, can they?"

I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, scream, or bang my head against the wall when I read that.

At least so far they have not been quoted as calling Obama a posucs.

Gobsmacked again,

Hekate

[TygrBright]

16. Good reminder. It won't do to underestimate the general ignorance level. n/t

[pnwmom]

28. That story killed me too. They didn't think the law could get changed.

What do they think Congress does?

[brush]

32. Voting for a racist who vows to take away your health care is stupid. Being stupid can kill.

[Missn-Hitch]

17. Yeah. Sure. Simple you say.

My lady friend works for DSHS. She processes food assistance applications and such. She knows everything about the people she speaks to because she pulls up their history. They will say, "I hope they get rid of that Obamacare". She looks to see what insurance they have.....

2+2=5. Say it again. 2+2=5.

"Simplify" you say.

[JohnnyRingo]

18. Well written

Thanx for shedding light on the Republican folly that is repeal.

[ymetca]

19. "Medicare for All"

Every Republican I know is perfectly fine with "Medicare for all". But the AMA doesn't want that. And the Hospitals don't want that. And the insurance companies don't want that. And most of our legislators don't want that. So that's why my premiums are the most expensive monthly bill I have. And I haven't even SEEN a doctor in years, just by sheer luck. And I am 60 years old, so I know the clock is ticking...

Democrats forgot that while people who were desperate for health care finally got some, an even larger number of people are still stuck with corporate insurance, which is damn near only catastrophe insurance now.

The ACA didn't really fix THAT problem, just took some marginal steps to address the outrageous crime of the growing number of so-called "uninsurables". Remember, the insurance companies were garnering record profits during the Bush years. Billions upon billions, and giving their CEOs and shareholders hundreds of millions. And hospitals were consolidating, loading up debt to out-snarf up all the remaining non-profits. Even the so-called "religious" hospitals in my neck of the woods all have big signs in their emergency rooms declaring WE DON'T TAKE MEDICAID. So how is the Republican plan to dump all our money on the states to "manage medicaid" going to work? Answer: it won't. The poor will have only one or two places in an entire state they can get healthcare from, and those places will forever be understaffed sinkholes of disease and depression. That is by design, apparently, to frighten us all into paying our premiums.

The fact that we equate insurance with healthcare at all is where we lost the battle. I understand that Obama and the Democrats didn't want to disrupt the system too much on the heels of the economic melt-down (or at least that was their excuse), but what MOST people got stuck with since is pretty terrible. And completely unsustainable. Trump just exploited that. It does no good to tell someone who's premiums are a thousand dollars a month to be grateful someone else is now getting healthcare, even life-saving healthcare. People just see that as "gee I am paying for everyone else to get healthcare!" I know it is heartless, but that is how people think.

"Medicare for All", is the only mantra I have left. The rest just falls on deaf ears.

[TygrBright]

21. Anyone who thinks the Septic Sphincter and/or the GOP will replace ACA with "Medicare for All"...

...is so far beyond delusional they'd probably qualify for a Cabinet appointment.

In the mean time, how about we prevent thousands of deaths, bankruptcies, and an immeasurable amount of suffering by hanging onto the less-than ideal half-loaf we DO have?

cynically,
Bright

[ymetca]

24. I hear ya...

But sometimes misery does love company, sadly. And heartless bastards like the GOP seem to love to inflict it.

Don't get me wrong. I am glad the ACA exists. And I understand that insurance is just "me paying for other people's healthcare", the same as the government doing it directly. But getting people with a sixth-grade level of education to understand that is almost impossible.

[zentrum]

20. Excellent post.

I find, in general, that our public Democrats are incapable of doing this kind of simple concrete type of explaining.

Elizabeth Warren excepted.

[TygrBright]

22. Thank you. We always want to explain too much, alas... n/t

[zentrum]

26. And often

…..in an abstract, wonky way that the majority won't listen to.

[radical noodle]

27. This is why so many people respond to Trump's tweets

A limited number of characters is all their little brains can hold at a time. We must learn to say things as though we're tweeting.

[world wide wally]

23. Here is what we should have been saying all along,

"We don't actually give a shit about you because you are already brain dead. But if you care about your children or others in your family, Trump, and the Republicans are going to fuck them over too"

[radical noodle]

25. There is still a donut hole in Plan D Medicare

although I believe it's been eased by ACA.

[TygrBright]

29. VERY greatly eased. n/t

[brush]

33. With the ACA it's supposed to be completely closed by 2020

[lambchopp59]

35. I fear this is still overestimating the general IQ and maturity of republicans, and here's why:

The Frumpster's watched and applauded as he mercilessly mocked a disabled reporter like a preadolescent schoolyard bully. That moment alone should have appalled and completely convinced any reasonable American that Frump is not fit to hold high office.
Instead they joined in the mob mentality, no matter how utterly reprehensible.
No simplification of the facts will likely soak the thick skulls that admired this behavior.
Fox fucking "news" will keep them all mesmerized with "everything's okay now" hypnotism while they've being hoodwinked, as long as their media keeps inciting their deplorable biases.

[MadDAsHell]

36. What we most need from the is policies/practices that follow the basic rules of math.

For all the good things the law does, it clearly fails to acknowledge basic addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication that we all should have learned forever ago.

You cannot adequately price an insurance product with no restrictions, no maximums and absolutely no available information about the likely claims of the person you're insuring. You just cannot. That isn't a Republican talking point.

THAT'S BASIC MATH.

It's a joke that we tried to make all these dramatic changes to how insurance works, and yet tried to do them within the private insurance model.

The "public option" promise became just the opposite; A DOUBLING DOWN of the private insurance status quo.