Lies and the Lying Liars*

As enrollment for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) reaches 4 million, there are signs that getting the uninsured to view it favorably, much less sign up, is proving a tough sell:

Fifty-six percent of those who identified as uninsured in a new poll conducted in February by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a research institution, had an unfavorable view of the health care reform law, compared to just 22 percent who said they view it favorably. The uninsured now see Obamacare less favorably than they did when the enrollment period began in October. As recently as September, more uninsured approved of the law than disapproved.  (our emphasis)

There's no question the bollixed rollout of Obamacare in October has contributed to the reluctance of many of the uninsured to take a closer look at how they would benefit from the coverage.  There are many other reasons individuals might mistrust health care reform or the government or whatever.  But the ceaseless, false drumbeat of the far right, magnified by its media outlets and often segued into the "mainstream media," has doubtless had a negative effect on public perception and, therefore, enrollment.

As the 2014 elections approach, Republicans are aiming to make Obamacare the main cudgel with which to beat vulnerable Democrats.  The Koch brothers' Americans for Plutocrat Prosperity have been aggressively running false ads around the country about "victims" of Obamacare:

Some eight months before the midterm elections, the airwaves are being flooded with the sad tales of Obamacare victims. The tales all fall into the same predictable rut. First, the poor victim steps forward to share his (or, more frequently, her) tale of deprivation. Then reporters discover the putative victim is either a non-victim, or possibly a beneficiary, of Obamacare. Then conservatives get angry.**

(**Conservatives like Byron York, who writes for the driveway-cluttering Washington Examiner, who want you to believe that fact-checking a Koch brothers lie story like cancer victim Julie Boonstra's amounts to attacking the victim -- please go f**k yourself, Mr. York.)

The Koch brothers' propagandists have gotten so desperate to find "stories" that they've even resorted to hiring actors and Republican activists to tell their lies  tales of faux woe.  So, tens of millions will be spent in a desperate campaign to discredit and derail a signal Obama Administration achievement, to fire up the sheeple in the Republican base for the off-year election, and to win back the Senate.   But in the process, remember one thing:  the bottom line is that they just don't want "those people" =cough= "The Moochers" =cough= from having health insurance.  Think of that for a moment.

For that reason, we can't think of viler people than the Koch brothers and their pants-on-fire ideological cave-mates.

Apparently, Harry Reid thinks the same way:

*Apologies to Sen. Al Franken.