House Republicans couldn't resist taking one more opportunity (their 33rd) to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act last week. This was a result not of cagey political calculation, but of the same distorted view of reality that breeds climate change denialism, embrace of austerity (for the 99 percent) policies when the economic system cries out for stimulus, and claims that the Great Recession was caused by excessive regulation. Such idiocy fails to elicit immediate political pain partly because it panders to powerful economic interests capable of convincing a significant portion of the populace to go along, and, among other things, partly because Democrats seem incapable of countering conservative propaganda effectively. Although defending reasonable health care services should be easy, Democrats have been such inept propagandists that it may be in order repeat some points that should be obvious.
It has become common knowledge that, although most Americans approve of most of the elements of the ACA, they fear "Obamacare" as a broad policy because they don't know what the elements are and they have been spooked by claims of the opponents of the ACA. Therefore, Democrats running against House Republicans who voted against the ACA and are eager to crow about it, can most effectively focus primarily on individual elements and the fact that their opponents:
• Voted to allow insurance companies to refuse to pay for the care of children with chronic diseases,
• Voted to allow insurance companies to set caps on what they would pay for injuries or illnesses, so they might, for instance, stop paying for cancer treatment once they determine it costs too much,
• Voted to allow insurance companies to refuse coverage to people they claim have "pre-existing conditions" even when those conditions are unrelated to the conditions that need treatment.
• Voted to allow insurance companies to move back to using 25 or 30 percent of their revenues to pay for administrative costs and company profits instead of the 15 percent to which the ACA limits them,
• According to the Congressional Budget Office, voted to increase the federal debt by $119 billion over the next seven years,
• Voted to allow freeloaders to access emergency services they never paid for,
• Voted to allow insurance companies to take away parents' rights to keep children on their policies until the age of 26,
• Voted against guaranteeing affordable insurance to people who might want to change jobs and move to a company that doesn't provide good insurance coverage or leave their jobs to start small businesses.
• Voted to keep infant mortality at one of the highest rates in the developed world, exceeding even the rates of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Cuba.
In a rational party, the Democratic National Committee would supply candidates with concise, guaranteed accurate, poll- or panel-tested statements of these facts. It would further supply detailed information to take care of caveats and quibbles I have not covered here. In speeches, meetings and advertisements, candidates could then make the most prominent use of those facts most likely to resonate with their constituencies.