Is the real GOP target NOT the ACA, but to gut SS/MC & then BLAME Obama & ACA?

[Faryn Balyncd]

Could the real reason for the GOP's insane & belated attack on what they label "Obamacare" (despite indisputable resemblance to previous plans advanced by Republicans in 1993, devised by the Heritage Foundation, & even legislated by their own 2012 presidential candidate) be something other than the delay or repeal of the Affordable Care Act?

Could the GOP's last hour obstructionism have a more devious purpose? . . . NOT to delay or roll back the implementation of the ACA, but to provide a smokescreen for their REAL purpose: not only to manipulate the President into a deal to slash Social Security and/or Medicare, but to do so in a context in which they can BLAME the President and "Obamacare" for such cuts?

That facts and logic do not impede the GOP from peddling nonsensical propaganda to their target audience was illustrated to be yesterday in a conversation with an acquaintance in his 60's, a Social Security recipient who had recently undergone major surgery. When this educated business-owner brought up "Obamacare", the major concern he expressed was an anxiety that Obamacare would damage his Medicare. Wherever he acquired that concern, facts made no difference.

He failed to mention any concern that the very Republicans he had recently given his votes to were, as we spoke, salivating over the prospects of slashing his Medicare as well as his Social Security.



How many Americans have been likewise conditioned by the Republican propaganda machine to view the availability & purchase of health insurance for all Americans (a plan which, until recently, they themselves had championed) as a "socialistic" threat to their own Social Security and Medicare (and do so with no sense of irony, or of the absurd)? . . . and to view Democrats fighting to defend these very programs upon which they depend as the villain?

Are the causes of the illogical Republican attacks on a moderate healthcare plan like the ACA, a plan that by all historic precedent should be viewed as a quintessential non-partisan plan, more than just Republican stupidity?

Does their insanity have purpose?

And is their purpose in placing "Obamacare" front and center in this shutdown crisis, not the delay or modification of "Obamacare" (which is on track and not going to be stopped), but to serve as a scapegoat so that if they can succeed and revive a "Grand Bargain", that the BLAME for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and other programs can be, despite the facts, be laid on "Obamacare" and on the President?

[Mnemosyne]

1. They are sneaky and conniving, would not put anything past them, nothing. nt

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. Well, seeing as a good friend's (relatively-used-to-be) moderate father

believes that ACA will cost him his SS and Medicare... you could be on to something.

Of course, he swears he never watches Fox news...because it's too far right for him...before coming up with some of these outrageous ideas.

[Faryn Balyncd]

5. Unfortunately, that RW meme is appears widespread.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Yes...

They view social programs like these as potential blocking of revenue streams. If the government does it, they can't charge enough for doing it.

It's the ulitimate end game for Randian privatizers.

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

4. I think they have some concrete goal

I have thought for some time that their opposition to the ACA, while authentic, was being deliberately overplayed. Not everyone in their movement is stupid. They have some very intelligent (and arguably super-villain evil) folks working in those think tanks and elsewhere. They must realize how hopeless and self-defeating their current stated stance is. With this in mind, I've come to think that they must have some other goal in sight.

Targeting social programs more broadly may be what they're up to. I was surprised at how overt their attacks against any and all safety net programs became, in the 2012 election and since then. Opposition to social programs is a much more central idea to conservatives and Republicans than had seemed apparent in past years. I guess we knew where they stood on these things, but now that stance is becoming central for them. I was more than a bit dismayed when I read the "Inside the GOP: Report on focus groups with Evangelical, Tea Party, and moderate Republicans" document yesterday.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this is more about destroying Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs than it is about the ACA.

[Chico Man]

6. It is interesting..

Obama could simply forge ahead, ignore the rider, note it in his signing statement, and risk impeachment.

[Mass]

7. Not as far fetched as it seems. It has already be repeated that, in the solution the House

leadership is preparing, chained CPI and reduction of entitlements have a prominent place. Here is National Review Costa's latest piece.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/360413/emerging-offer-robert-costa

It hasn’t been announced, and you won’t hear about it today, but the final volley of the fiscal impasse, at least for House Republicans, is already being brokered. And according to my top sources — both members and senior aides — it won’t end with a clean CR, or with a sprawling, 2011-style budget agreement. It’ll end with an offer — a relatively modest mid-October offer that concurrently connects a debt-limit extension, government funding, and a small, but strategically designed menu of conservative demands.
...
But details are floating to the surface as the leadership reaches out to internal power brokers about what’s within the realm of the possible. What I’m hearing: There will be a “mechanism” for revenue-neutral tax reform, ushered by Ryan and Michigan’s Dave Camp, that will encourage deeper congressional talks in the coming year. There will be entitlement-reform proposals, most likely chained CPI and means testing Medicare; there will also be some health-care provisions, such as a repeal of the medical-device tax, which has bipartisan support in both chambers. Boehner, sources say, is expected to go as far as he can with his offer. Anything too small will earn conservative ire; anything too big will turn off Democrats.
...
The key for Boehner is to pass a CR and debt-limit extension, but to do it in a way that shows real progress to the right on certain fronts — a medical-device tax repeal is at the top of the list — and moves toward major future changes, such as tax reform, without having to do too much in the short term.
...