REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Koch Group abandons Obamacare 'horror' stories after fact-heck backlash, pulls out of New Mexico

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Thursday, March 20, 2014 11:02
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 2257
PAGE 1 of 1

Monday, March 17, 2014 1:53 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Quote:

Have we heard the last Obamacare "horror" story? If new ads from the Koch Brothers-backed group are any indication, we might have.

Americans for Prosperity, the well-funded conservative group that has been attacking Democrats in battleground states over the health care reform law, put out TV ads Monday against Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Mark Udall (D-CO).

But what's notable about the ads is what they aren't: A personalized story of someone who's been negatively affected by Obamacare, the kind of verifiable set of facts that can be checked -- and rebutted, as happened with a recent AFP ad that led to significant backlash from the fact-checking community.

It's a notably different style after the group incurred the wrath of fact-checkers over an ad released last month in the Michigan Senate race. That ad told the story of a cancer patient who had her plan canceled because of Obamacare. But the spot didn't mention that the subject would save at least $1,200 for a new health plan under the law, as TPM and numerous other-fact-checkers reported ( http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140310/LIFESTYLE03/303100100).

Another AFP ad featuring a Medicare recipient earned a "Two Pinocchios" rating from the Washington Post ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/02/25/an-atta
ck-ad-against-obamacare-featuring-a-man-on-medicare
/). The Huffington Post called out a third ad ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/14/obamacare-arkansas-2014-senat
e-race_n_4963747.html
), featuring a couple whose policy had been canceled, in the Arkansas Senate race last week. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/afp-obamacare-horror-stories-no-more



Apparently they're also pulling out of New Mexico, too:
Quote:

Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group backed by the billionaire Koch brothers, is pulling out of New Mexico. Americans for Prosperity expanded to New Mexico as part of multi-state expansion to thwart support for President Barack Obama's reelection in 2012.

Just over a year later, the group is "reallocating their resources elsewhere,” and won't have any “boots on the ground” in New Mexico, state field representative Pam Wolfe told ProgressNow, a progressive grassroots organization based in Albuquerque, N.M.

"I think other conservative funders and organizations are going to take a second look at New Mexico after this news," said Patrick Davis, executive director of ProgressNow. "I can imagine the leaders of those organizations asking themselves 'Well, if the Koch brothers couldn't buy New Mexico, how will we?'"

In 2013, Americans for Prosperity spent more than $12.4 million on candidate-specific anti-Obamacare ads. In 2012, Americans for Prosperity hit New Mexico and 30 other states in their "Obama’s Failing Agenda" bus tour. Davis believes the group's departure from New Mexico is a sign of its own failures.

“AFP’s 2012 bus tour was named the ‘failed agenda’ tour and it made several stops across the state,” he said. “It turns out they were onto something with that. But it turns out the failed agenda in New Mexico wasn’t that of President Obama and progressives. It was their own.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/12/koch-brothers-new-mexico_n_45
86414.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003



NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 17, 2014 2:02 PM

REAVERFAN


Facts aren't kind to the Kochs.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 17, 2014 5:33 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:



Facts aren't kind to Obama supporters.



Paul Krugman keeps daring the conservative right to find a real Obamacare victim story – one that couldn’t be debunked by a little extra sleuthing. Well, Paul, here are three.

Last June, Birch received a letter from Lovelace Insurance warning her that her coverage would be terminated. However, it told her to wait for more information before she did anything. The months rolled past and no phone call came. She paid her premium in December, assuming everything was sorted out. However, on January 4, 2014, she was told her insurance was cancelled and she would have to log onto the New Mexico healthcare exchange. So she did.

After spending two hours filling personal information into the ever-growing ACA database, the system stopped her from enrolling her children. It needed to determine if her sons were eligible for Medicaid. The error message promised that a state representative would contact her, but no one has. When she tried to call, the wait was 45 minutes.

"I have a twelve- and five-year-old who play sports. They need a doctor," Birch said.

Birch wasn’t eligible for the marketplace’s Platinum plan, but the next best thing – the Gold plan – offered her comparable care for $519.23 a month with a $3,000 deductible—an increase of over $175 a month with no coverage for her children caught in Medicaid limbo.

http://spectator.org/articles/58308/faces-obamacare

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 17, 2014 5:39 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Quote:

Michigan is a crucial piece on the 2014 U.S. Senate chessboard, and Republicans have a good shot at gaining retiring Democrat Carl Levin’s open seat, given Democratic nominee Gary Peters’s unpopular House vote for the Affordable Care Act. Yet Peters has hope. The president’s unilateral delays in Obamacare mandates have eased planned layoffs by local governments and businesses. Moderate GOP governor Rick Snyder supports the ACA’s Medicaid expansion. And the state’s liberal news media have largely ignored the estimated 225,000-plus canceled individual policies and the job losses at medical-device maker Stryker.

But Julie Boonstra won’t be ignored. So she must be destroyed.





http://www.nationalreview.com/article/373429/war-julie-boonstra-henry-
payne


Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 17, 2014 7:45 PM

REAVERFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:



Facts aren't kind to Obama supporters.



Paul Krugman keeps daring the conservative right to find a real Obamacare victim story – one that couldn’t be debunked by a little extra sleuthing. Well, Paul, here are three.

Last June, Birch received a letter from Lovelace Insurance warning her that her coverage would be terminated. However, it told her to wait for more information before she did anything. The months rolled past and no phone call came. She paid her premium in December, assuming everything was sorted out. However, on January 4, 2014, she was told her insurance was cancelled and she would have to log onto the New Mexico healthcare exchange. So she did.

After spending two hours filling personal information into the ever-growing ACA database, the system stopped her from enrolling her children. It needed to determine if her sons were eligible for Medicaid. The error message promised that a state representative would contact her, but no one has. When she tried to call, the wait was 45 minutes.

"I have a twelve- and five-year-old who play sports. They need a doctor," Birch said.

Birch wasn’t eligible for the marketplace’s Platinum plan, but the next best thing – the Gold plan – offered her comparable care for $519.23 a month with a $3,000 deductible—an increase of over $175 a month with no coverage for her children caught in Medicaid limbo.

http://spectator.org/articles/58308/faces-obamacare


She sounds irresponsible. Most companies cancelled their rip-off plans because they didn't meet the standards. She had plenty of time to get it squared away.

Unless, of course, she's in a repub state. They're out to screw everybody.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 17, 2014 9:35 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by reaverfan:
Facts aren't kind to the Kochs.



Ayep, mind you, Krugman is every bit as fulla shit, but that doesn't make him wrong in this case.

-F

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 17, 2014 10:01 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by reaverfan:

She sounds irresponsible. Most companies cancelled their rip-off plans because they didn't meet the standards. She had plenty of time to get it squared away.

Unless, of course, she's in a repub state. They're out to screw everybody.



The plans don't meet the O-Care standards ? That was ENTIRELY BY DESIGN! Don't you frelling get it ?

She wasn't any bit irresponsible. AMERICA was irresponsible in electing this Marxist piece of SHIT in Obama.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 17, 2014 10:11 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Fan, I wouldn't bother trying to reason with him. HE FOUND ONE!! He FOUND a bad story about Obamacare!! He found a REAL ONE!! That's all that matters, nothing else is real. Nothing else ever will be.

Forget about the literally millions of horror stories about people whose insurance wouldn't cover them, who lost their insurance because they got sick, whose insurance refused to cover life-saving procedures, who got screwed by their insurance company, who couldn't afford insurance in the first place, who couldn't GET insurance because of pre-existing conditions...he FOUND a bad story about Obamacare!!

That's all there is in his world, don't you get it?


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 17, 2014 11:37 PM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Fan, I wouldn't bother trying to reason with him. HE FOUND ONE!! He FOUND a bad story about Obamacare!!



Yeah. Again I propose this argument - Rap is the sockpuppet of a liberal, invented for no other purpose but to show how stupid the Faux news/Tea Party/RWA talking points are. Why else could any poster be so blatantly stupid and obvious in his sense of victory in finding *ONE* case where Obamacare wasn't better than the old way?

Think about it this way... a good friend once challenged me to imagine making a parody of Walker Texas Ranger.

You can't. The show is so incredibly stupid that you can't make it any more stupid. You can't make fun of it to any greater degree than just watching the actual show. It is that bad.

Hence: Rappy.



*-------------------------------------------------*
What trolls reveal about themselves when they troll:
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=57532
*-------------------------------------------------*



NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 5:48 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Almost everything you know is wrong.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 9:14 AM

JONGSSTRAW


The NY Times reported over the weekend that NO Koch money was used in the recent Florida 13th district election for Congress. Not one cent! The Republican was vastly outspent by the Democrat, but he won because he made the Obamacare debacle the central issue. Koch money will not be needed or used very much for the mid-term elections. Polling shows the House will remain firmly in Republican control. 24 Senate seats are up for grabs, and Democrats are in complete Obamacare panic mode as polling shows them trailing badly in enough contests to flip the Senate back to Republican control. Koch money will likely be used in a few of those contests, but they're saving the big campaign war chest for 2016. Meanwhile in 2014, the individual candidates' anti-Obamacare ads are not going to stop any time soon despite Nancy Pelosi's shrill and delusional warning to Republicans to stop.

What I continue to find hi-larious is the original 50 million people without health insurance, for whom Obamacare was created to help. So far less than 5 million (if that high) have signed up, and the deadline for 2014 is less than two weeks away. So thanks to Obama and the Democrats, on April 1st 45 million uninsured people will be in violation of the individual mandate law and subject to an IRS fine. LOL!

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 1:17 PM

STORYMARK


Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Fan, I wouldn't bother trying to reason with him. HE FOUND ONE!! He FOUND a bad story about Obamacare!!



Yeah. Again I propose this argument - Rap is the sockpuppet of a liberal, invented for no other purpose but to show how stupid the Faux news/Tea Party/RWA talking points are. Why else could any poster be so blatantly stupid and obvious in his sense of victory in finding *ONE* case where Obamacare wasn't better than the old way?

Think about it this way... a good friend once challenged me to imagine making a parody of Walker Texas Ranger.

You can't. The show is so incredibly stupid that you can't make it any more stupid. You can't make fun of it to any greater degree than just watching the actual show. It is that bad.

Hence: Rappy.



*-------------------------------------------------*
What trolls reveal about themselves when they troll:
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=57532
*-------------------------------------------------*





I wish I could believe that. But I can't. I think he really is that aggressively stupid.

If he were faking it, Id have to question a bunch of hard-right bozos. And I doubt Palin or Bachman are faking it.




"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 4:00 PM

REAVERFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
The NY Times reported over the weekend that NO Koch money was used in the recent Florida 13th district election for Congress. Not one cent! The Republican was vastly outspent by the Democrat, but he won because he made the Obamacare debacle the central issue. Koch money will not be needed or used very much for the mid-term elections. Polling shows the House will remain firmly in Republican control. 24 Senate seats are up for grabs, and Democrats are in complete Obamacare panic mode as polling shows them trailing badly in enough contests to flip the Senate back to Republican control. Koch money will likely be used in a few of those contests, but they're saving the big campaign war chest for 2016. Meanwhile in 2014, the individual candidates' anti-Obamacare ads are not going to stop any time soon despite Nancy Pelosi's shrill and delusional warning to Republicans to stop.

What I continue to find hi-larious is the original 50 million people without health insurance, for whom Obamacare was created to help. So far less than 5 million (if that high) have signed up, and the deadline for 2014 is less than two weeks away. So thanks to Obama and the Democrats, on April 1st 45 million uninsured people will be in violation of the individual mandate law and subject to an IRS fine. LOL!

Got a link for that?

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 5:23 PM

JONGSSTRAW


From the NY Times:

"Frightening Democrats further, none of the Republican third-party money in the race came from the Koch brothers, the wealthy industrialists whose political groups have funded the bulk of the TV ads hammering Democrats this election cycle."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/us/politics/obama-factor-adds-to-fea
rs-of-democrats.html



NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 8:26 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:



Facts aren't kind to Obama supporters.



Paul Krugman keeps daring the conservative right to find a real Obamacare victim story – one that couldn’t be debunked by a little extra sleuthing. Well, Paul, here are three.

Last June, Birch received a letter from Lovelace Insurance warning her that her coverage would be terminated. However, it told her to wait for more information before she did anything. The months rolled past and no phone call came. She paid her premium in December, assuming everything was sorted out. However, on January 4, 2014, she was told her insurance was cancelled and she would have to log onto the New Mexico healthcare exchange. So she did.

After spending two hours filling personal information into the ever-growing ACA database, the system stopped her from enrolling her children. It needed to determine if her sons were eligible for Medicaid. The error message promised that a state representative would contact her, but no one has. When she tried to call, the wait was 45 minutes.

"I have a twelve- and five-year-old who play sports. They need a doctor," Birch said.

Birch wasn’t eligible for the marketplace’s Platinum plan, but the next best thing – the Gold plan – offered her comparable care for $519.23 a month with a $3,000 deductible—an increase of over $175 a month with no coverage for her children caught in Medicaid limbo.

http://spectator.org/articles/58308/faces-obamacare

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall


Do you have any articles that don't come from conservative websites? And aren't written by student journalists (??)?

It's not personal. It's just war.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 8:36 PM

REAVERFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
From the NY Times:

"Frightening Democrats further, none of the Republican third-party money in the race came from the Koch brothers, the wealthy industrialists whose political groups have funded the bulk of the TV ads hammering Democrats this election cycle."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/us/politics/obama-factor-adds-to-fea
rs-of-democrats.html



LOL! Other Republican front groups, like American Crossroads (Kark Rove's propaganda tool) did this one. There is not a whit of difference between them. They're all fascists and known liars.

If you were a little more up on how it all works, you'd know that. Apparently, you like having your government bought out by crooked liars.

The writers of the opinion piece you quoted are right wing hacks. NYT is full of them.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 19, 2014 9:26 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


"Frightening Democrats further...?" What's that all about? Koch pulled out of New Mexico and others, and is focusing on anti-Obamacare ads in places like Alaska and Nevada, etc. There's plenty of other money filling the gap, as Fan mentioned.

Sure politicians and pundits on both sides are going whacko over the loss in Florida, but it was a special election, and special elections are the only election on the ballot in a district. That doesn't come close to predicting what the ballot will look like in November. They're also almost always on days when elections are not usually scheduled, meaning that turnout patterns are unpredictable. Dems won three very competitive special elections in New York in 2009 and 2010, and got reamed in the general. All Republicans did was hold onto a seat that Republican Rep. Bill Young had represented for decades before he died last year. No question it's got a psychological effect on pols on both sides, but it's no guarantee of anything.

Ten other Republican groups spent $5 million on that race, they didn't need Koch. Koch didn't get their money's worth last time around (in spades!), so they're probably being more careful about where they're spending their billions. No surprise there. Besides, how do they know there was no Koch money involved? At least one in four "dark-money" dollars in 2012 had links to Koch ( https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/12/1-in-4-dark-money-dollars-in-
2012-c.html
). That's certainly hasn't changed!


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 19, 2014 9:47 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
"Frightening Democrats further...?"

Sure politicians and pundits on both sides are going whacko over the loss in Florida . . . No question it's got a psychological effect on pols on both sides, but it's no guarantee of anything.

There are lots of people who have been helped by Obamacare. So why haven't the airwaves been blanketed with their stories? And there are plenty of feel-good Obamacare stories. But Democratic campaigns have neither the money nor, apparently, the desire to use them. www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/03/defending_ob
amacare_why_aren_t_democrats_using_the_approach_republicans.html


Democrats are afraid to fight back because they don't want to be tainted by Obamacare; and this leaves the field wide open to making Obamacare even more toxic.

Democratic politicians are going to be in a world of hurt this year if they keep running away from Obamacare. If they want to win, they'd better emerge from their fetal crouch and start fighting back. Nobody likes candidates who won't stand up and defend their own party's achievements.

Democratic politicians are already acting like whipped curs, moaning about the map and the itch and the turnout. They lose a special election by two percentage points and all is lost. The press, smelling weakness, piles on. Democratic voters, acting like the normal human beings they are, get discouraged and figure that things are hopeless. So they don't contribute, they don't campaign, and they don't bother voting on Election Day.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 19, 2014 10:37 AM

REAVERFAN

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 19, 2014 12:24 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


No one has commented yet on the Freudian slip in the header-- " fact-heck backlash". I'm reading that in the same sense as the old neocon," Fact checkers. We don' need no stinkin' fact checkers!" response.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 19, 2014 1:19 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Hee, hee, hee, NewOld, I never even noticed. Sorry about that. ;o)

What you wrote does kinda fit, tho', don't it?


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 19, 2014 4:35 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by kpo:
Do you have any articles that don't come from conservative websites? And aren't written by student journalists (??)?





" What difference, at this point , does it make ? "



Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, March 20, 2014 11:02 AM

REAVERFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:

Originally posted by kpo:
Do you have any articles that don't come from conservative websites? And aren't written by student journalists (??)?





" What difference, at this point , does it make ? "

Can't even get that right. LOL


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
Fri, March 29, 2024 02:54 - 3414 posts
BUILD BACK BETTER!
Fri, March 29, 2024 02:49 - 11 posts
Russia says 60 dead, 145 injured in concert hall raid; Islamic State group claims responsibility
Fri, March 29, 2024 00:45 - 56 posts
Elections; 2024
Fri, March 29, 2024 00:33 - 2075 posts
Long List of Celebrities that are Still Here
Fri, March 29, 2024 00:00 - 1 posts
China
Thu, March 28, 2024 22:10 - 447 posts
Biden
Thu, March 28, 2024 22:03 - 853 posts
Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
Thu, March 28, 2024 17:20 - 6155 posts
Well... He was no longer useful to the DNC or the Ukraine Money Laundering Scheme... So justice was served
Thu, March 28, 2024 12:44 - 1 posts
Salon: NBC's Ronna blunder: A failed attempt to appeal to MAGA voters — except they hate her too
Thu, March 28, 2024 07:04 - 1 posts
Russian losses in Ukraine
Wed, March 27, 2024 23:21 - 987 posts
human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
Wed, March 27, 2024 15:03 - 824 posts

FFF.NET SOCIAL