Judith Mayer Lynn, uninsured and battling breast cancer, should be a fan of the Affordable Care Act. Instead, Bloomberg reports, she know little about it. When Bloomberg interviewed the 56-year-old she was unaware of subsidies in the law that will help people like her buy coverage in 2014,. “Lynn didn’t know the Affordable Care Act requiresthat insurers to pay for prescription drugs, hospital stays and other services she’s spent the last two years scrimping to afford. Nor did she realize she can no longer be denied a policy due to her illness”.
When told of the benefits, “Lynn remained unconvinced, skeptical of insurers and government alike. ‘It’s a joke,’ she said. ‘There’s going to be loopholes in all of these provisions.’”
If you showed Lynn the list of “essential benefits” that insurers will have to include in the policies they sell to people like her, could you persuade her to read the list—and explain where she saw the holes? Probably not. Her mind is closed.
In an interview at an Access to Healthcare office in Las Vegas, Lynn said she was unaware of those benefits — and didn’t trust Obama to produce them anyway.
The Poison: Hatred
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. We live in a nation where in 2009, a U.S. Congressman felt free to shout out “You Lie” during a televised presidential speech to a joint session of Congress.
(President Obama had just said that the legislation would not mandate coverage for undocumented immigrants. This is, of course, correct. South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson (R) later apologized.)
Yet that didn’t stop another Congressional Republican from calling out the President earlier this month. In a scathing speech on the floor of the House, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) derided President Obama as a “dishonest, incompetent, vengeful liar” who lacks a “moral compass.” Bridenstine cited HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ efforts to promote enrollment in the Affordable Care Act as one reason that President Obama is “not fit to lead.”
Bridenstine didn’t apologize. Instead, the next day he told a talk show host that he had “gotten great encouragement” for his remarks from fellow Republicans. /
I have followed U.S. politics for many years. Never have I seen a president so hated—not Nixon, not LBJ at the height of the War in Vietnam..
Politicians Are Not Alone in Teaching Americans Not to Trust Obamacare
Lynn recalls one of her surgeons telling her that he was leaving the business because the health-care law dictates what he can charge patients. This, Bloomberg notes, is “something the legislation doesn’t do. “
Why would a surgeon claim that the Affordable Care Act will be setting his rates? Presumably he reads newspapers. How could he be so uninformed?
“There is a lot of distrust,” Sherri Rice, chief executive officer at Access to Healthcare explains. When her nonprofit group began asking members about the ACA last month, about half knew little about its provisions and another quarter were “furious” about it, she told Bloomberg.
Such anger makes it difficult to think clearly—or take in information. This may explain why Lynn’s surgeon thinks that under the ACA he will be told what he can charge patients. Perhaps he, too, is so “furious” that the facts don’t register. Hatred blinds.