Run away, little right-wingers! Run away!

[Andrew D]

It turns out that the Affordable Care Act is so popular that the websites cannot handle the volume of Americans wanting to participate in it.

In New York alone, two million people went to the website in just the first two hours.

Americans want this, little right-wingers. Americans want this in a big way. Americans want to be part of the adult world.

So now we who are on the right side of this issue pat you on your little heads -- if we can catch you while you are running for your Limbaugh-Hannity security blankets -- and send you off to bed.

[oldr_n_wsr]

How many are there just "checking it out"? I know I was checking it out and I have health coverage. And the salary limits on aid packages, they don't specify if that is before or after deductions.

[Andrew D]

Why were you checking it out?

[rubato]

2,000,000 is a huge amount of traffic for the first day. Nice of the GOP to work so hard to publicize it and make it an even bigger success.

It will be interesting to see how it does over the first months.

Yrs,
Rubato

[Gob]

I think that if all the repubbies have to worry about is childish name calling, then they will get their way.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Why were you checking it out?

just to see the site. I'm curious.

[rubato]

He just reads the articles.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

2,000,000 is a huge amount of traffic for the first day. Nice of the GOP to work so hard to publicize it

I'm sure oldr is correct in saying that a significant percentage of the folks who checked it out were just curious to see what all the fuss was about, (the real test will come in how many people actually sign up in the next few weeks and months, particularly younger people.) but rube also makes a legitimate point...

The launching of the health exchanges has received at least ten times the publicity it otherwise would have as a result of this government shutdown folderol...

You couldn't buy the kind of media attention that has been generated for this courtesy of the Kamikaze Caucus within the House GOP membership...

[dgs49]

It is an odd situation. MOST Americans will not be significantly affected by the implementation of ACA because they get their insurance through their employers and their employers will either eat it or make some relatively painless adjustment. Just like MOST Americans will be completely unaffected by the government "shutdown."

If you actually look at what is happening though, there are a lot of bad things happening to a lot of people (mainly young adults) - loss of jobs, shift to part time employment, health insurance dropped, health insurance premiums substantially increased. If you run through the numbers, it is certainly the wisest choice for a lot of young people to pay the fine and seek out low-ball catastrophic health insurance outside the exchanges. Many people will not be hired, but they won't know that it was because of a small employer's wanting to get or stay below a threshhold.

But will the number of negatively impacted people be sufficient to get "popular opinion" mobilized against the ACA? Probably not.

To imply that ACA is "popular" because a lot of people checked it out on the first couple days is delusional.

[Big RR]

Well, as a small businessman who chooses to offer health insurance to my employees, I can tall you I've seen none of the premium increases the opponents of ACA have touted. Indeed, while the insurance costs are fairly high, they actually went down a bit when I renewed in the spring. Right now I am well below the threshold for mandatory coverage, but choose to provide healthcare coverage (the employees pay some as well) as I believe I get a better caliber of employee because of it.

[Andrew D]

I think that if all the repubbies have to worry about is childish name calling, then they will get their way.

If name-calling were somehow an issue, then every policy embraced by Obama would be the law of the land.

Socialist.
Communist.
Fascist.
Muslim.
Foreigner.
Illegitimate.
Homosexual.

When it comes to childish name-calling, progressives would have to spend months doing nothing else in order even to hope to catch up with the little right-wingers.

[Econoline]

Someone really ought to compile a comprehensive list of the Republicans' dire predictions for the effects of the ACA. It would be interesting to archive them all and then look at the predictions again in, oh, say, about a year (around Oct.-Nov.2014 )...in order to see just how right or wrong they are.

Though, given the current crop of teabaggers, I wouldn't put it past them to deliberately tank the economy just so they can blame that on Obamacare.

[Andrew D]

And while they're at it, they should compile a list of right-wingers' dire predictions about Social Security -- you know, the program that right-wingers were unalterably opposed to until they became, all too alterably, for it.

Oh, wait. The Tea Party anarchists hate that one too. Or do they?

And Medicare -- again, unalterably opposed until all to alterably in favor. Or not. Or maybe?

[Sue U]

Someone really ought to compile a comprehensive list of the Republicans' dire predictions for the effects of the ACA. It would be interesting to archive them all and then look at the predictions again in, oh, say, about a year (around Oct.-Nov.2014 )...in order to see just how right or wrong they are.

The Daily Show already has it on their to-do list.

[Sue U]

And Medicare -- again, unalterably opposed until all to alterably in favor. Or not. Or maybe?

[rubato]

http://economistsview.typepad.com/econo ... again.html

Paul Krugman says I told you so:

Health Care Panic, Again: Eduardo Porter is getting a lot of attention for his piece in today’s paper suggesting that what Republicans fear most is that Obamacare might succeed. ... I’m surprised that so many people seem to find this a surprising and new insight. I thought it was obvious. Here’s a column I wrote back in July predicting more or less what is now happening, for exactly the reason Porter gives: GOP panic over the prospect of successful health reform. ... But let’s also be clear that these positions are not symmetric. Liberals favored health reform both because it would work and because it might enhance their ability to push for other policies; conservatives were and are determined to kill health reform ... precisely because it would work — because it might weaken the rest of their agenda. ...

[Beer Sponge]

Thanks Sue, your last post absolutely destroyed my industrial strength irony meter.

[Gob]

Nice to see some demosocialcommies (Sue) actually have wit and humour, unlike the petulant OP.

[Andrew D]

Shit!

My petulance is not up to snuff.

Waah!

[Daisy]

I absolutely fail to understand what there is to oppose here?

Healthcare free at the point of need for every citizen should have been written into your constitution instead of the right to bear arms. You'd have been a whole lot better off if that had been the case. You might have even done a better job of it than we did.