Dogs and Bones

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Now that the federal insurance exchange website is, I hear, considerably less buggy, the GOP is zeroing in on some state exchanges that are not doing so well —

With the federal online insurance exchange running more smoothly than ever, the biggest laggards in fixing enrollment problems are now state-run exchanges in several states where the governors and legislative leaders have been among the strongest supporters of President Obama’s health care law.

Republicans have seized on the failures of homegrown exchanges in states like Maryland, Minnesota and Oregon — all plagued by technological problems that have kept customers unhappy and enrollment goals unmet — and promise to use the issue against Democratic candidates for governor and legislative seats this fall.

“People see incompetence when they look at this,” said Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. “Everyone that’s associated with it is going to have to deal with the consequences of this terrible law, including the state legislators who created these exchanges and the governors in charge of running them.”

Hmmm. People are frustrated with the sites not working well because they’re trying to buy the bleeping insurance. And Republicans, who oppose the legislation to make buying the insurance possible, think this is an issue that will work for them, because …?

But they’re still trying to make the law look bad. David Weigel tells us about a couple of the women appearing in anti-Obamacare commercials.

Lamb didn’t have private insurance per se. She was on a Tennessee-sponsored health care program that covered 16,000 people, canceled last year because it “had a $25,000 annual limit on benefits” and “the federal health law does not allow yearly expenditure caps.” The state applied for a waiver, and didn’t get it, but nor did it consider accepting the expansion of Medicaid. (Since 2011, the state’s been run completely by Republicans.)

Here’s the other one, a woman whose insurance policy was canceled but refused to use the exhange to get new insurance:

The reason she didn’t visit the Washington state health exchange was basically #OBUMMER. “I wouldn’t go on that Obama website at all,” she said. This didn’t start with her cancellation. This started years ago. Republicans told Bette, and others inclined to distrust Obamacare, that they’d face death panels and rationing boards. That their options would be unaffordable, and irredeemable. That the exchange sites would make their personal information vulnerable to hackers and that creepy Uncle Sam would sexually violate them. They said all this in the hope that people like Bette wouldn’t give the law a fair shake, then turned around and feigned outrage on their behalf when the plan worked.

Finally — I just heard that the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman has died, possibly of a drug overdose. He was only in his 40s. Very sad.

7 thoughts on “Dogs and Bones”

  1. Look, if Conservative people want to be even stupider and more ignorant than usual, pull a Darwin Award nomination worthy act, and eliminate themselves from the gene pool – and yes, I know, most of them are too old to swim in it 🙂 , then this countries future looks brighter and brighter. If only by the process of elimination.

    Hoffman was one of the finest American actors of his generation.
    Maybe, the best.
    How sad.
    And yeah, I also heard he’d OD’d.
    Which makes it even more sad.
    What a waste!

  2. Needle and the Damage Done

    I caught you knockin’ at my cellar door
    I love you, baby, can I have some more?
    Ooh, ooh, the damage done

    I hit the city and I lost my band
    I watched the needle take another man
    Gone, gone, the damage done

    I sing the song because I love the man
    I know that some of you don’t understand
    Milk blood to keep from running out

    I’ve seen the needle and the damage done
    A little part of it in everyone
    But every junkie’s like a settin’ sun

    Read more: Neil Young – The Needle And The Damage Done Lyrics | MetroLyrics

  4. Speaking of Woody Allen, I’m reminded of the joke at the beginning of Annie Hall: “The food here is terrible!” “And such small portions.”

    “ObamaCare is socialist tyranny!” “And the sites don’t work!”

    Of course, all the ObamaCare horror stories–one of which may yet turn out to be true–are really complaints about the efficacy of the law, too, rather than about its legitimacy.

    Which is great, because as long as you’re complaining about the law not working, you’re implicitly accepting that it should be working. There have been some questions raised lately about the structural integrity of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, but I don’t think very many people would agree that the solution is not to have a bridge there.

  5. Let’s look at the positive side: while we’re encumbered with these fools, we’re doing the world a huge favor having them here. If they weren’t here gumming up the works by making the kinds of idiotic arguments you just highlighted, they’d be in some third world famine-hit area telling people that the solution to not having enough food and water is to simply not eat or drink at all.

    We take the hit so they don’t have to.

  6. anthrosciguy ..The negative side to your positive side is that we don’t hold a monopoly on these jerks. The Lord God in his infinite wisdom dispersed them throughout his creation so that all mankind should suffer equally. The scripture is written: “For the jerks shall always be with you, even until the end”.

  7. I wish I had thought of that joke, Stephen. So, if I tell it, and it goes over well. I’ll pretend I did think of it!

    I’ll sure miss Philip Seymour Hoffman too. Maybe sometimes it’s better to be a less talented less troubled soul. But, people like him sure make the world more interesting.

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