The Whopper of the Year wasn't the President's lie about ACA coverage--it's the Republicans lie that their alternative is better

Every hour of every day, across the airwaves and the blogosphere, Republican partisans blast “Obamacare” with the usual heavy-handed sarcasm that passes for humor in conservative circles.
    Oddly, though, no Republican has even one word to say about Republicare–their alternative to the Affordable Care Act.
    Republicare is what we’ll get if the Republicans succeed in destroying the Affordable Care Act, through a combination of winning the Presidency and their lavishly funded national campaign of sabotaging the ACA. Then we’ll revert to the American healthcare system as of 2008, with no changes whatsoever. The proof of this is simple: the Republican-dominated House has passed 46 healthcare bills since 2010. And every one of them did nothing but repeal the ACA. Period. Individual Republican lawmakers suggest this or that reform, but the GOP's "Repeal and Replace" campaign, so far, is all repeal, no replace.
    So the real whopper of the year is the claim that the American healthcare system as of 2008, with no changes at all, beats the ACA, warts and all.
    The Republicans know better than to say this out loud. They’re just hoping Americans won’t realize it’s what they’re actually saying. They’re hoping we won’t remember what it was like to have insurance company clerks making life and death decisions about you–decisions that were nearly impossible to appeal; to have your insurance dropped as soon as you got really sick; to have insurance refused if you had a “pre-existing condition;” to get sold junk insurance policies in which “the large print giveth–the small print taketh away” (apologies to Tom Waits); a healthcare system that was the most expensive on earth per capita, with the worst results among rich countries.
    There are Americans who will spend more for healthcare under the ACA than before. However, what most of this small minority don't realize is that the healthcare insurance they'd had before was, for most, junk policies that would have done nothing for them if something bad actually happened to them. Investigative journalists have researched the angry "ACA losers" featured on FOX News daily and found that most of the cases were bogus--people who hadn't bothered to find out what their alternatives were under the ACA, or who didn't realize that their old policies were so bad they were really uninsured.
    For at least 90% of all Americans, they're better off with the ACA.
    Want proof? Look at what the Republicans say. They refuse to talk about what they have to offer in lieu of "Obamacare." What's the use of criticizing anything if you don't talk about the alternative?

     I dare any Republican to actually compare “Obamacare” to Republicare.

The Lie of the Year isn't President Obama's whopper about the Affordable Care Act

Politifact.com has "awarded" its Lie of the Year dubious honor to President Obama for saying you keep your healthcare if you like it.

The Right Wing Media has picked this up and made a whole lotta hay with it.

But this time they're wrong.

The President's lie was a lie, all right, and even though it only directly affects a very small percentage of Americans it also affects his credibility with everyone else.

However, the Lie of the Year is vastly more pernicious, even though no one ever says it explicity.

It's the Republicans' lie that Republicare is better than Obamacare for any but 1% of Americans.

Republicare is what we get if the Republicans repeal Obamacare. Forty-six times in that last several years the Republicans have voted to repeal Obamacare in its entirety (in the House of Representatives), and 46 times the Republcans' health bill contained exactly nothing to replace Obamacare with if it succeeded.

So Republicare is simply America's high profitable healthcare system as it was before the Affordable Care Act became law.

And Republicare was a disaster that killed many people and drove many others into bankruptcy. The Affordable Care Act, warts and all, is infinitely better than a Republicare, in which you might pay into your healthcare insurance provider for 40 years only to get dumped as soon as you get really sick and start reducing that insurer's profits.

Republicare is the most billionaire-friendly healthcare system on Earth. But for us non-billionaires, the idea that it's preferable to the ACA would only make sense to someone completely blinded by right wing ideology.

And that's why Republicans NEVER talk about what we'll get if they get what they want. They want us to look at the ACA without regard to the only alternative they've given us: nothing.

And Nothing is what Republicare is.

How to discuss ObamaCare with your Tea Party friends & relatives

My fellow Democrats--here's how to talk about ObamaCare with your Tea Party relatives, workmates, and acquaintances:

Don't. Make them talk about RepubliCare. That's the Republican Party's alternative to ObamaCare.
I realize it's a challenge, since they never, ever talk about it, and have never offered a single piece of legislation that would implement it.

But just as you can make a drawing from "negative space"--shading in everything but your subject--you can describe RepubliCare and its consequences precisely:

It's what we'd have if ObamaCare were repealed and nothing introduced to replace it.

It would be the status quo for American healthcare, the most expensive on the planet on a per capita basis, with some of the poorest health outcomes (if you aren't a millionaire) of any advanced nation. It's the system every sane economist says is completely unsustainable. And of course RepubliCare strips you of any protection from your health insurers, letting them cancel your insurance the moment you really need it--as has been SOP for decades.

Force your Republican friends & family to tell you first, exactly what RepubliCare is, and second, exactly how its provisions compare with those of ObamaCare.

Don't let them bring up any other theoretical health plan. The GOP has offered NOTHING but repealing ObamaCare, so nothing but the old status quo is exactly what they must defend.
They keep trying to get us on our back foot to defend our law. Don't fall for it. Make them defend theirs.

ObamaCare vs. RepublicCare

Given how America's political system works, the only alternative to ObamaCare is RepubliCare.

But while the GOP and its friends have spent over $400 million telling you how awful ObamaCare is, they haven't spent a cent telling you what their alternative is.

I can tell you what it is, though:

1. Repeal ObamaCare in toto.
2. There is no "2."

So RepubliCare is for-profit medicine by the medical-industrial complex, for the medical-industrial complex, by the medical-industrial complex.

RepubliCare is overcrowded emergency care facilities being used by the poor as their primary care. RepubliCare is your health insurance that you paid into for forty years getting canceled as soon as you really need it.
RepubliCare is private health insurance for those whose employers don't provide health insurance plus freelancers plus retirees, which provides excellent care for millionaires, while the rest find it's either too expensive to buy or whose deductibles are so high it's useless.
RepubliCare is the most expensive per-capital healthcare system on Earth, with the worst outcomes for most people compared to those of other developed nations--the healthcare system growing in costs so rapidly that it's consuming the American economy--the healthcare system every responsible economist said is unsustainable and running us over a cliff in short order.

ObamaCare has plenty of shortcomings--mostly due to compromises made at the behest of those who are now trying to kill it. But it's a dream compared to the nightmare of RepubliCare.

So--the next time your Republican friends, family and acquaintances want to talk to you about how awful ObamaCare is, make them do so not against some imaginary ideal but against the reality of RepubliCare.