GOP Obamacare social media fail

[ttt]

www.vox.com/2015/3/26/8296863/mcmorris-rodgers-obamacare


Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House GOP conference, took to Facebook to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act by asking to hear real-life horror stories from real people.

This week marks the 5th anniversary of #Obamacare being signed into law. Whether it's turned your tax filing into a nightmare, you're facing skyrocketing premiums, or your employer has reduced your work hours, I want to hear about it.

Please share your story with me so that I can better understand the challenges you're facing: mcmorris.house.gov/your-story/

Instead she got this:



This is mostly just an object lesson in social media use. As many brands have discovered, opening yourself up to this kind of dialogue is basically an open invitation to get trolled.

But it also reveals something fundamental about the structure of the Affordable Care Act. Reasonable people can disagree about whether this law is, all things considered, a good idea. But one of the main things it does is raise taxes rather dramatically on a pretty small number of high-income people in order to give subsidized health insurance policies to a substantially larger number of low-income people. Indeed, this is one of the main things Republicans don't like about it!

But if you do a simple head count, you are almost certainly going to find more people getting discount insurance than people paying extra taxes.

[ttt]

There's more:
www.facebook.com/mcmorrisrodgers/photos/a.405156824771.195673.321618789771/10153225909544772/?type=1


Robert Fairfax I work for cancer care northwest. We actually have more patients with insurance and fewer having to choose treatment over bankruptcy. Cathy, I'm a die hard conservative and I'm asking you to stop just slamming Obamacare. Fix it, change it or come up with a better idea! Thanks

Dylan McGuire My premiums have not increased, my hours have not been reduced and I know a couple of people who were able to get medical care through insurance rather than going to an emergency room. Taxes are no more difficult than they have ever been.

William Francis Condon My story is that I once knew 7 people who couldn't get health insurance. Now they all have it, thanks to the ACA and President Obama, and their plans are as good as the one my employer provides--and they pay less for them. Now, that's not the kind of story you want to hear. You want to hear made-up horror stories. I don't know anyone with one of those stories.

Jim Reid Hello Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers!

I work as the facilitator of a task force that is overseeing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in Washington State. I have learned that the ACA is helping people who did not previously have health insurance get it. It is helping bring down medical costs. It is improving the quality of care. It is improving experiences of both patients and their families.

I work with doctors, nurses, hospital and clinic managers, non-profit service providers, citizens-at-large. Each of them can site an improvement they would like to make to the Act. But whether they are Republican or Democrat, from urban or rural areas, powerful or not, they all say the ACA is working.

Can't you and your Republican colleagues stop trying to repeal this Act and work to make it even more effective? Please?

Thank you.

Jim Reid
7th Congressional District

[jeaniebueller]

Is she that tone deaf that it didn't occur to anyone on her staff how this experiment could backfire?

[scout8]

I just shared my positive story. I am sure I will now get eaten alive by negative comments.

[mbcdefg]

Those comments are surprisingly coherent. Usually Internet comments are a shitshow. 

[wawa]

My mom is one of those uninsurables who is now insurable. Her policy ain't cheap - but at least now she has one.

[NewOrleans]

This is why I don't think, if Ted Cruz is using Obamacare as a stunt to slam it, it will work.

[suzyp]

I really like that people are asking for her alternate plan. Because other than shouting to appeal it, most Republicans are not saying anything.

[ttt]

I love this comment:

This is the only comment section I've seen in a while that didn't make me disappointed in life.

[jillboston]

I do love me the intertoobz.

[vlagrl]

I need to share our positive story. we finally have really good coverage for an affordable rate. and hooray for maternity coverage not being a pre existing condition anymore. Baby #2 will be cheaper than baby #1

[vlagrl]

apparently the link doesn't work now. the truth hurts i guess.  ETA - the other link worked

[ttt]

Mar 27, 2015 12:51:54 GMT -5 vlagrl said:

apparently the link doesn't work now. the truth hurts i guess

It's still there! www.facebook.com/mcmorrisrodgers/photos/a.405156824771.195673.321618789771/10153225909544772/?type=1 

[vlagrl]

Mar 27, 2015 12:57:04 GMT -5 ttt said:

Mar 27, 2015 12:51:54 GMT -5 vlagrl said:

apparently the link doesn't work now. the truth hurts i guess

It's still there! www.facebook.com/mcmorrisrodgers/photos/a.405156824771.195673.321618789771/10153225909544772/?type=1 

yeah I found it.  I was trying a different link that was no longer available.  I shared our great story.  I never thought I would be a proponent for UHC, but I'm all about it now.

[mominatrix]

Mar 27, 2015 12:51:54 GMT -5 vlagrl said:

apparently the link doesn't work now. the truth hurts i guess.  ETA - the other link worked

www.gop.gov/yourstory/

[dawnzersong]

This is great!



MIL spent the last five years arguing with me about the ACA, insisting that it's going to destroy health care and everyone will have to wait six months to see a doctor and it's not fair to force everyone to buy insurance, and the states are all broke so they're stupid if they expand Medicaid eligibility, and blah blah blah. Every time I saw her, she would just go on a tirade of parroted Fox News bullshit. She just would not shut up about it. Last week, FIL (the sole breadwinner in her household) lost his job, along with health insurance coverage for the family. The premium for COBRA was about $1000 per month, so MIL called H freaking out about what they were going to do because they have nothing in savings beyond FIL's severance package. The conversation went like this:



H: Did you check your state's exchange for a policy?

MIL: What's an exchange?

H: You know, the website set up under the ACA where people can buy health insurance?.
MIL: What's the ACA?

H: The Affordable Care Act.

MIL (voice dripping with disdain): Oh, is that that Obamacare thing? Cuz we don't want to do that.

FACEPALM

Lady, do not spend five years yelling about how Obamacare is going to DESTROY AMERICA when you don't even know what it is!
 

[greeneggs]

Mar 27, 2015 10:45:11 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

This is why I don't think, if Ted Cruz is using Obamacare as a stunt to slam it, it will work.

Ted Cruz is too committed to the game to NOT slam it.  Most likely he'll do what my dad did when he was forced to get a policy to cover the gap for the first few months of 2014 because he did not qualify for Medicare until his birthday and his previous insurance company dropped him for having the audacity to actually get sick and file claims.  He claimed to spend hours everyday fighting with them over the status of his application (most likely he was calling them every day to freak out on them so nothing could get done because he was terrorizing the poor CSRs in the call center).  Once he finally got his coverage he was LIVID that his doctor did not accept that insurance and the only urgent care clinic that did accept it was over 30 minutes away in a terrible neighborhood (most likely he chose the cheapest plan available without researching his coverage under it).  Luckily for Ted Cruz Texas refused to set up an exchange and so he'll be forced to endure to tyranny of the Federal Exchange and will purposely choose a plan that excludes coverage for something so he can rail about it in the news.

I'm so sure of this I'm willing to bet my lipstick collection he'll deliberately make it into a media shit show so he can prove his point.  

[vlagrl]

DH thinks Cruz won't repeal it and that he is saying that for the repub party. He says they will tweak it and that it's a 2000 pg bill so it's impossible to reverse all of it. IDK what to believe. I really haven't heard of any alternatives from the GOP at all.

[vlagrl]

Mar 27, 2015 13:21:19 GMT -5 dawnzersong said:

This is great!



MIL spent the last five years arguing with me about the ACA, insisting that it's going to destroy health care and everyone will have to wait six months to see a doctor and it's not fair to force everyone to buy insurance, and the states are all broke so they're stupid if they expand Medicaid eligibility, and blah blah blah. Every time I saw her, she would just go on a tirade of parroted Fox News bullshit. She just would not shut up about it. Last week, FIL (the sole breadwinner in her household) lost his job, along with health insurance coverage for the family. The premium for COBRA was about $1000 per month, so MIL called H freaking out about what they were going to do because they have nothing in savings beyond FIL's severance package. The conversation went like this:



H: Did you check your state's exchange for a policy?

MIL: What's an exchange?

H: You know, the website set up under the ACA where people can buy health insurance?.
MIL: What's the ACA?

H: The Affordable Care Act.

MIL (voice dripping with disdain): Oh, is that that Obamacare thing? Cuz we don't want to do that.

FACEPALM

Lady, do not spend five years yelling about how Obamacare is going to DESTROY AMERICA when you don't even know what it is!
 

Did they get on ACA?  My dad lost his job last year and COBRA was $1100 a month and they couldn't afford it so they got on a bronze plan for free from the exchanges.

[jillboston]

on a side note - my husband's aunt (71 year old retired city employee with 73 year old husband who worked for the T in Boston and retired at 50 with a full pension.) had NO idea that people lose their health insurance once they leave or are terminated or laid off from a job.

[wawa]

I will say that I have a friend in healthcare who regularly makes really vague comments about the ACA messing shit up, but I've never pressed her on what the hell she's talking about because it's usually in passing when we're having a good time and I just don't feel like it.

Anybody have any insight from a provider's POV?

[ESF]

Mar 27, 2015 13:50:58 GMT -5 greeneggs said:

Mar 27, 2015 10:45:11 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

This is why I don't think, if Ted Cruz is using Obamacare as a stunt to slam it, it will work.

Ted Cruz is too committed to the game to NOT slam it.  Most likely he'll do what my dad did when he was forced to get a policy to cover the gap for the first few months of 2014 because he did not qualify for Medicare until his birthday and his previous insurance company dropped him for having the audacity to actually get sick and file claims.  He claimed to spend hours everyday fighting with them over the status of his application (most likely he was calling them every day to freak out on them so nothing could get done because he was terrorizing the poor CSRs in the call center).  Once he finally got his coverage he was LIVID that his doctor did not accept that insurance and the only urgent care clinic that did accept it was over 30 minutes away in a terrible neighborhood (most likely he chose the cheapest plan available without researching his coverage under it).  Luckily for Ted Cruz Texas refused to set up an exchange and so he'll be forced to endure to tyranny of the Federal Exchange and will purposely choose a plan that excludes coverage for something so he can rail about it in the news.

I'm so sure of this I'm willing to bet my lipstick collection he'll deliberately make it into a media shit show so he can prove his point.  

Exactly.  At the end of the day, it's just health insurance.  It's not perfect. There are still problems. 

He is also too smart to do something this stupid. I'm actually amazed that people still keep opening up dialogues on social media like this. How dumb do you have to be?

[dawnzersong]

Mar 27, 2015 14:41:09 GMT -5 vlagrl said:

Mar 27, 2015 13:21:19 GMT -5 dawnzersong said:

This is great!



MIL spent the last five years arguing with me about the ACA, insisting that it's going to destroy health care and everyone will have to wait six months to see a doctor and it's not fair to force everyone to buy insurance, and the states are all broke so they're stupid if they expand Medicaid eligibility, and blah blah blah. Every time I saw her, she would just go on a tirade of parroted Fox News bullshit. She just would not shut up about it. Last week, FIL (the sole breadwinner in her household) lost his job, along with health insurance coverage for the family. The premium for COBRA was about $1000 per month, so MIL called H freaking out about what they were going to do because they have nothing in savings beyond FIL's severance package. The conversation went like this:



H: Did you check your state's exchange for a policy?

MIL: What's an exchange?

H: You know, the website set up under the ACA where people can buy health insurance?.
MIL: What's the ACA?

H: The Affordable Care Act.

MIL (voice dripping with disdain): Oh, is that that Obamacare thing? Cuz we don't want to do that.

FACEPALM

Lady, do not spend five years yelling about how Obamacare is going to DESTROY AMERICA when you don't even know what it is!
 

Did they get on ACA?  My dad lost his job last year and COBRA was $1100 a month and they couldn't afford it so they got on a bronze plan for free from the exchanges.

I'm not sure, to be honest. I don't like talking to MIL so I just let H deal with her and I don't ask too many questions. But I wouldn't be surprised if they could find something on the exchange that is better than all of the other options available to them at this point. I'm sorry about your dad's job loss- I'm so glad he was able to find a health plan.