Best Thing I've Read Today

The right wing has proven itself again and again to live in an evidence-free world. To them, facts are irrelevant, even biased, if they don't follow the extremist conservative agenda.

That's why so many of them still believe that Obamacare has been a debacle. But as economist Paul Krugman points out in the NY Times, the Affordable Care Act is doing better then even many of its supporters realize:
The facts show that Obamacare is a success. Could it be better? Sure. But it's not the Armageddon-causing piece of legislation that conservative talk radio loudmouths and lying Fox News pundits continue to claim it is. The Supreme Court has now legitimized its legality twice, millions of people won't face financial ruin just because they get sick and, while GOP presidential candidates repeat Mitt Romney's 2012 promise to repeal it on their first day in office, that won't happen, either, because the ACA's popularity with the American public is only going to grow between now and November, 2016.

Krugman concludes:
Now, you might wonder why a law that works so well and does so much good is the object of so much political venom — venom that is, by the way, on full display in Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion, with its rants against “interpretive jiggery-pokery.” But what conservatives have always feared about health reform is the possibility that it might succeed, and in so doing remind voters that sometimes government action can improve ordinary Americans’ lives.

That’s why the right went all out to destroy the Clinton health plan in 1993, and tried to do the same to the Affordable Care Act. But Obamacare has survived, it’s here, and it’s working. The great conservative nightmare has come true. And it’s a beautiful thing.
Read Krugman's full piece here.

Labels: