GOP Gets Obamacare PR Disaster Hanging Curve To Hit, But Will It?

For those of us who have been preaching Obamacare doom and gloom since long before it was THE LAW OF THE LAND, the temptation to take a good, long wallow in the Schadenfreude this week is overwhelming. Fittingly, the horrors of the not-so-Affordable Care Act are coming to light for some of its staunchest supporters during the Halloween season.

The once preternaturally in sync Obamacare advocacy media horde is in the midst of some family fighting, which was surprisingly kicked off when NBC News came home drunk and accidentally did some real reporting.

Prior to that, the NBC banner (NBC News, MSNBC and Saturday Night Live) was where Team Lightbringer went when it wanted to feel safe and be told that it was pretty. When the heretofore head cheerleader for Obamacare supported a major talking point for the opposition it created far more consternation than Ezra Klein’s partial escape from the Hive Mind

It’s now getting so surreal that Mediaite‘s Tommy Christopher is railing against “the mainstream media“. 

Trained Soros chimp Eric Boehlert quickly climbed back up on Uncle George’s lap and began tweeting his angst. 

Still, even among the law’s staunchest fringe-left proponents, there are epiphanies to be found

By now, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, with individual or self-employed health care plans could lose their current plans come January. Despite administration spin on this topic that the plans people may get will offer more benefits, greater protection and lower prices, the harsh reality is that both the prices and scope of the plans on the exchanges are coming as a shock to many forced to scramble for new plans on the balky, trouble-prone exchanges.

I’m one of them — and in my advocacy journalism, I’ve been supportive of the Affordable Care Act and the Obama administration. So I was disturbed to learn that President Obama’s repeated promises that I and millions of others took for granted — “If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you” — haven’t turned out to be true.

From the same post: 

Moreover, the administration and its progressive allies — and I consider myself one — aren’t facing up to the PR disaster emerging from both the balky healthcare.gov website and how millions of people are facing cancelled coverage they now have. No matter how it’s explained away or packaged, the prospect of dropped coverage impacting possibly millions of people simply doesn’t square with repeated assurances from Obama and his allies that, essentially, no one would lose their current coverage.

This is a golden moment for the GOP to seize the advantage from the Obama Myth Machine. His “signature” achievement was sold with lies and there is video evidence of it all over the place. So much of it, in fact, that even left-leaning New York Magazine jumped on it

That’s right, pretty pictures tell the story. No need for wonkish analysis to prove we were right all along. All of the dire warnings and predictions about the law are out there for reference. 

This is not the time for the Republicans to think they are above an in-their-faces “We told you so!” moment.

“They lied, we didn’t.” 

It’s that simple, kids. 

The GOP establishment has a bad habit of being pitched hanging curves like this and responding by dropping the bat, turning to the fans behind home plate and explaining the science of hitting a baseball. They hope that the fans will eventually appreciate this knowledge and enjoy the lecture more than they would just seeing the ball crushed and knocked out of the park. 

It is Home Run Derby time now. If the GOP doesn’t start swinging freely it may very well end up losing even the casual political observers who have long supported it out of habit. 

At which point Carville’s “forty years” prediction will actually begin


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