The Republicans have managed to frame public opinion about Obama with the constant media noise about how he hasn’t accomplished anything. It doesn’t matter that the Republicans have filibustered just about everything Obama does, but that hasn’t stopped the media from convincing former Obama supporters to feel betrayed by him.
For example, the LA Times has a story on a middle-class woman who campaigned for Obama, but after the election felt let down by him. She changed her registration from Democrat to Independent, and even blacked out the top of the “h” on her Obama bumper sticker so it would read “got nope” instead of “got hope”.
The good news is that she has changed her mind and issued a public apology to Obama. The bad news is why she changed her mind — she was recently diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. Two years ago, after her husband was laid off from his job they faced a difficult choice — they only had enough money to either pay their mortgage or pay for their health insurance (the latter bill being larger than the former!), so they took a desperate but necessary gamble and lost.
Without insurance or enough money to cover the expensive treatments, this could have been a death sentence for this mother of two children, but she found a lifesaver (perhaps literally) in a part of Obama’s healthcare reform that has already kicked in — the “Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan”. In her words “The application was short, the premiums are affordable, and I have found the people who work in the administration office to be quite compassionate (nothing like the people I have dealt with over the years at other insurance companies.)”
A Harvard study says that more people die from lack of adequate health insurance each year than died in the 9/11 attacks. The next time someone complains about Obama not accomplishing anything, point out that Obama was able to pass health care reform, something that had eluded every prior president who tried. And now the Republicans are campaigning that they will repeal it (or find a way to gut it) and go back to the dark ages.
Hopefully, it won’t take a life threatening disaster to change your mind about Obama. Try to ignore the noise machine and look at the facts. As our mother with breast cancer puts it:
So this is my public apology. I’m sorry I didn’t do enough of my own research to find out what promises the president has made good on. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that he really has stood up for me and my family, and for so many others like us. I’m getting a new bumper sticker to cover the one that says “Got nope.” It will say “ObamaCares.”
Another blogger has picked up this story, and the best part are the comments on it.
8 Comments
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/
Everyone who comes to this site knows this meter. It is spreading the word about this meterto others. There are things on here that got compromised away because of the health care bill, like extending the tax cuts to the wealthy which will expire at the end of 2012, Congress or no Congress.
HCR has been a success so far, but it’s still being attacked for whatever reason. I don’t think anyone who benefits from it should vote for a Republican, but I’m willing to bet at least some of them will. Obama is not a President that shows off his accomplishments. Most people I know didn’t notice that their taxes had gone down when the payroll tax was cut. He’s not flashy about what he gets done, and he doesn’t attack Republicans all that much comparatively. If we want to blame Obama’s “failures” on anyone, we should just blame the GOP.
Can’t share this story as it defaults back to your message about being away for a month. Fix?
[I’m not seeing that problem. –iron]
To be scrupulously fair, the biggest legitimate complaint about the Health Care Act is that it requires businesses (over a certain size) to provide health insurance to employees. While most large businesses already do, some (like the fast food industry) don’t and the cost for them to provide it will be high. There is also a threshold (50 employees) so many small businesses just under the threshold are having problems as a result – if they go over the threshold they will have to start providing health insurance for everyone, which both slows their hiring and could mean the difference between profitability and loss in those businesses.
I agree that this is a legitimate complaint. I also agree that 30 million uninsured (which we all; pay for in emergency rooms) is a legitimate complaint, that having people thrown off their paid for insurance on a whim is a legitimate complaint, and that children and adults being denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition is a legitimate complaint. The “preponderance of evidence” suggests many more problems were solved with the Health Care Act than have been created by it.
The bottom line is that you can’t make changes without some people being negatively impacted. If Republicans want to address legitimate complaints, there is NO REASON they cannot go after them with fixes, instead of trying to repeal everything. But they don’t really CARE about the small businesses – they care about the big businesses that don’t want to have the new restrictions, so fixing the LEGITIMATE issues with the Act will not achieve their real objectives.
The only reason that complaint is an issue is because Republicans demanded that everything else be killed that would have solved that problem (public option, single payer).
You can’t do anything in government (and arguably anywhere else) without negatively affecting someone. Tax money spent on building or repairing a road which someone does not use is a negative effect on them. Shall we stop building roads? 🙂
The Harvard study also presents an interesting way of dealing with people about this issue, because they have totally lost perspective on it.
The next time someone (in person) wants to ramble on about how awful Obamacare is, grab a writing utensil, something to write on, and a watch.
At the end of 12 minutes, write a mark. After the next 12 minutes, another. Every 12 minutes, another mark.
When they ask what you are doing, explain that the lines are people…dead people. The statistics average out to 1 person every 12 minutes.
This also means 123 people every day. 3750 people every month. 45000 people every year. Then ask how many years the health care debate has been going on.
Not to be a downer – you know where this is going now – this is a heart-warming story indeed. About a woman who changed her mind about a president who has expanded US aggression, allowed peaceful civilians to be brutalized and denied Constitutional rights on the streets of America – for daring to ask that their representative government listen to them and fulfill its social contract, rather than remain the miltary arm of multinational corporations – and has begun preparations for war with China. Why did she decide Obama was really an okay president? Because she, personally, got something out of his administration. Obama refused to entertain any suggestion that the architects of the looting of the American public and the toppling of the world economy should be charged with crimes; he has agreed to allow the banks to continue to ‘police’ themselves; his administration has cut education funding, turned student loans over to the banks, denying educational advance to nearly 25% of our post-grad students. Hundreds of thousands of children in US-occupied countries continue to live without electricity, clean water, schooling, or safety from sudden violence.
But a few disenfranchised and corporate-f*cked Americans who searched desperately through small print they found in a basement behind a locked door with a sign that said ‘Beware of the Leopard’ got something they needed.
Good enough reason to feel a lot better about Obama.
If that’s you NOT being a downer … yow!