GOP steps in Obamacare trap: Watch their false claims blow up in their face!

[DonViejo]

For the right, attacks against Obamacare's market disruption were great fun. Until it doomed their own plan. Oops

BRIAN BEUTLER

Late last year, when conservatives everywhere were grieving publicly for each American who’d received a cancellation notice from a health insurance carrier, the smartest among them realized they had a small problem on their hands.

The wave of cancellations made for great politics, and it was a joy to watch the public’s trust in Obama crater for having promised everyone that they could keep their plans. But by turning an insurance market disruption into a political liability — and a normatively bad thing — Republicans had left themselves very little room to advance conservative health policy ideas.

The cornerstone of nearly every conservative health care reform plan is to eliminate or dramatically reduce the tax preference for employer-sponsored health insurance and use the revenues to help people pay for their own coverage. But the disruptions that would entail would dwarf the ones Obamacare is creating, and conservative wonks realized that by opportunistically attacking Obamacare, political operatives had just crafted the very attacks that could ultimately doom their own policymaking pursuits.

Writing at National Review late last year, Ramesh Ponnuru noted that in the wake of the cancelations row conservatives would have to move more gradually than they might ideally like.

“Some Republican health-care plans would run up against this same obstacle, because they, too, disrupt existing health-insurance arrangements,” he wrote. “The answer to this problem, I think, is not to abandon the idea of moving in the direction of free-market health care as an alternative to Obamacare; it’s to make that move in steps. Step one would be flattening the tax break so it no longer rewards the purchase of the most comprehensive coverage available.”

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/10/conservatives_are_about_to_be_hoisted_by_their_own_obamacare_petard/

[Glitterati]

1. How silly this whole article is

Honey, the Republican headlines are the ones being repeated. The Democrats haven't even gotten ONE headline out there.

They stepped on nothing.

The Republicans are succeeding and will continue to succeed. The Democrats have NO messaging on this.

on edit:
Nothing EVER changes. Just like Ted Cruz saying Obama shut down the government, not him.

[Cha]

2. Yes, it is important to know

what the republicons are doing in their attempts to destroy Obamacare.

thanks Don