Gene Lyons: Don't Be Fooled by the GOP's Sick Healthcare Rhetoric

[flpoljunkie]

Don't be fooled by the GOP's sick healthcare rhetoric
Their promise to repeal "Obamacare" might have some appeal now, but just let them try to do it for real

BY GENE LYONS

Just how gullible are you? Of the many absurdities in the Republican Party's "Pledge to America," the most problematic may be the GOP's vow to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, colloquially called "Obamacare." Not the most ridiculous, mind you. That would have to be the vow to reinstate the expiring Bush tax cuts at a 10-year cost of $4 trillion, slashing government spending to 2008 levels while balancing the federal budget.

Is there anybody capable of filling out Form 1040 EZ who buys this latest Republican fantasy? Alas, yes. A clamorous minority remains captive to the GOP's decades-long War on Arithmetic. The more dramatically "conservative" economic dogma fails -- there's nothing conservative about believing in magic -- the greater their cultlike need to believe it.

Obamacare's problems, however, are somewhat of the White House's own making. Polls have shown that while the law's unpopular in the abstract, its constituent parts earn wide approval. That's partly because GOP propaganda, "government takeover," "death panels," etc., scared low-information voters; partly because the bill's so complex that few really understand how it works.

That needn't be an overwhelming obstacle. Few motorists know how their automobile works, but that doesn't stop them from driving. The White House hoped that as Obamacare's reforms took effect, public opinion would swing in its favor. Even people who succumb to dogma on an abstract issue like the federal budget often think more clearly about their personal well-being.

Anyway, regardless of how the 2010 elections go, there's zero chance of Republicans winning a veto-proof two-thirds majority. Hence, repealing Obamacare can't happen; it's a meaningless promise. Furthermore, regardless of what you hear from Fox News and talk-radio blowhards, universal health insurance hasn't "failed everywhere it's been tried"; quite the opposite: No country that's ever adopted it (basically every other advanced democracy in the world) has ever repealed it.

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http://www.salon.com/news/politics/republican_party/index.html?story=/opinion/feature/2010/09/29/gop_healthcare_lyons

[YOY]

1. Why stop with the GOPs rhetoric?

Single Payer. It's still the solution.

The Republican's plan from 1993? Still a shitty idea.