Instead of coming to the table with real ideas to solve the problems with the ACA rollout, Republicans have spent all of their time on TV gloat-splaining how awful it is to be unable to keep junk insurance. They are fighting hard so that corporations can keep screwing Americans over because it’s so unfair that someone would have to pick new insurance that would actually cover them. Meanwhile, President Obama is doing what grown ups do — he’s taking responsibility and trying to fix problems.
Pollster John Zogby reported for Zogby’s weekly White House report* that while President Obama is taking ownership of the problems with the ACA rollout and trying to fix them, the Republican Party is busy mocking what they prematurely see as a huge, forever failure instead of trying to fix things. He titled his report, “Obama needs support, not GOP mockery, on health care ‘fix'”.
“Mr. Obama took ownership and said he would fix the cancellation problem – giving the Democrats some cover.”
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Zogby is not so impressed with the GOP. He reminded them that their job is to make policy, not to gloat and mock:
“And, to the Republicans, the Constitution mandates Congress to make policy, not gloat and mock. Obamacare is after all a program originated under Republican former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney that is being implemented by an African-American president that they love to hate. I will wait to see if the kinks are indeed fixed before I pass final judgment. Meanwhile it would sure be nice to get some creative ideas for fixing those problems from both sides.”
Zogby notes that while the numbers for enrollment aren’t quite what the administration thought they would be, they are impressive – and ultimately, these million plus are people who “will actually have decent health care coverage.”
It should surprise no one that the Republican Party rushed to judgment on ObamaCare and that in doing so, they and the media that supports them revealed that they have no clue about how most Americans live. To Republicans, it’s the End of the World if a person has to pick a new insurance plan, but no biggie if millions die from lack of insurance coverage or are denied coverage after paying faithfully into their “insurance” plan for years.
When former President Bush rolled out Medicare Part D, it had huge problems — but it is now widely popular. Instead of writhing orgasmically in the backseat mocking the fail, Democrats got on board to help fix Bush’s plan. This is what grown ups who are paid to make policy do.
PolitiFact gave a “true” the to statement that Medicare Part D experienced many of the same problems as the ACA. Check this flashback out:
“This is a huge undertaking and there are going to be glitches. My goal is the same as yours: Get rid of the glitches.”
A Democrat in 2013? Wrong! Actually, it was Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee, about Medicare Part D in 2006.
Of course, things were a little different in that Democrats weren’t deliberately trying to sabotage the Medicare Part D rollout and liberal activists weren’t DDOS-ing the website in a desperate attempt to ensure that millions remain without insurance lest the other side get a “win”.
And that sums up all that is wrong with the GOP – instead of being serious problem solvers with a different ideology than the President, they have been at war with him and anything he touches since he took office. They raced right past taking any responsibility for the failed implementation of their ideology under Bush, and instead, rushed into trying to make Obama appear even remotely as awful as Bush. That they have had to lie, cheat and steal to do that and have still failed shouldn’t be lost on the public.
The good news is that their Obama hate has managed to make Republicans utter words about the uninsured other than blaming them and laughing at their deaths, even if only while covertly trying kill ObamaCare. The 2014 slogans make themselves: Republicans couldn’t bear that some of you couldn’t keep your fake, junk insurance, so we made sure that no one would have affordable healthcare! #Winning.
The party of “personal responsibility” has devolved party-wide into a screaming chorus of whining, mocking, nasty trolls dead set on derailing any serious discussion in American politics.
*Zogby’s weekly White House report is published under Paul Bedard’s Washington Secrets in the Washington Examiner.
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