The Price That's Paid For Believing Lies

From yesterday's once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle comes a story of how the Republican scare machine - with Fox "News" and hate radio as its biggest megaphones - has done its job with low-information folks who would benefit enormously from more affordable health care:

Carolyn Underwood remembers her dad coming home covered in black coal dust from the mines. “Momma would have his water ready. He’d wash his face and she would wash his neck,” she said. 

In old age, he suffered from black lung disease and wore an oxygen supply constantly. But unlike his daughter, he never worried about how he would pay his medical bills. The union took care of it. 

That doesn’t make Carolyn Underwood, 63, a supporter of expanded government health coverage, even though she would benefit from it. In a region where the decline of the coal industry has sent poverty and health-care needs soaring, another force has grown at least by equal measures: antipathy to President Obama and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 

“I am scared of Obamacare,” Underwood said. “We’ve been hearing too many tales about it. We heard there’s doctors who get to decide . . . ” Before she could put her finger on the term “death panels,” her sister Nancy Taylor, 62, made a gun gesture with her hand and said, “Pow!”  (our emphasis)

Union family.  Appalachia.  Low-income.  And they're "scared of Obamacare."  People for whom government social safety nets were designed in order to make their lives less awful, shunning the help that's there for the taking.  "Death panels," our asses.  "Tales" is the right word, Ms. Underwood. Heckuva job, Republicans!