Healthcare propaganda

One great indicator of how far right the right-wing has shifted in the last 20 years is its approach to the healthcare problem. The current system is woefully inefficient (despite claims from low-information voters to the contrary), and it is all too easy for ordinary, hard-working, law-abiding people to fall through the cracks. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is an attempt to address some of those problems and, as has been well documented, the main aspects of the program were drawn up by the right wing Heritage Foundation think tank.

Fast forward a few decades and all of a sudden, "Obamacare" is now more or less socialism in the eyes of right-wingers. Of course, much of this is due to the propaganda from the plutocracy's media machine-- including the Oklahoman. And as today's letter from R.W. Boyer of El Reno shows, the propaganda is still going strong. He writes:

The Obama administration and members of Congress expect citizens of the United States to accept Obamacare while they themselves refuse to have much to do with it. They make a lot more money than most citizens do and they say that they can't afford the cost of Obamacare? What makes them think that everyday “Joe Plumber” can afford it?

As usual, we have someone talking about an issue that they are clearly ignorant of. Mr Boyer is talking about how

U.S. lawmakers and their staffs will continue to receive a federal contribution toward the health insurance that they must purchase through soon-to-open exchanges created by President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law.

This sounds fishy, but it's not. Previously, these people were covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program-- the insurance that covers millions of Americans employed by the federal government. And indeed, getting insurance through an employer is how it works for most Americans.

Strangely, though, as the ACA was being drawn up,

an amendment required that lawmakers and their staff members purchase health insurance through the online exchanges that the law created. They would lose generous coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

The amendment's author, Republican Senator Charles Grassley, argued that if Obamacare plans were good enough for the American public, they were good enough for Congress. Democrats, eager to pass the reforms, went along with it.

This doesn't make any sense and it is mind-boggling that Congress would do this. Forcing people off of their employed- provided insurance isn't the point of "Obamacare" so claiming otherwise is, well, a mistake.

Realizing this, Congress has now allowed the federal government to pay for 75% of the premiums for these individual plans that they shouldn't have to get in the first place.

Mr. Boyer totally doesn't get it. Indeed, he writes that

This administration and Congress are trying to pass off a dangerous and inferior product as something good for us yet bad for them. Their refusal to have anything to do with Obamacare for themselves and their families should be a huge red flag of concern for everybody!

Again: "Obamacare" isn't a product. It's a series of regulations that do some basic things to improve the healthcare industry. Unfortunately, Mr Boyer-- like many Americans-- is clueless about what "Obamacare" is and rails against it only because he's been told lies by right-wing media outlets like the Oklahoman. A real newspaper would try to inform its readers. But for the plutocracy, they can only survive by spreading propaganda, and so we get newspapers like the Oklahoman. It's a disgrace.