As these successes build, Republicans are naturally coping with their fear the only way they know how: by scaring the hell out of everyone else. The Koch brothers, not content with the millions they flushed down the toilet on Karl Rove’s 2012 electoral strategy, are spending millions more on ads that tell the same previously debunked lies about the health care law. Mitch McConnell, still pursuing his top legislative priority of defeating a president who can no longer be defeated, actually threatened the NFL for even considering the administration’s request to help educate uninsured Americans about the fact that they can now receive affordable coverage under the law.
Think about that. This is the same kind of public education and outreach effort that the Bush administration once launched about a prescription drug program that many Democrats voted against. But Democrats didn’t object because it didn’t exactly seem fair to punish senior citizens with higher drug costs just to prove a political point. This is also the same kind of effort Mitt Romney launched in Massachusetts when he asked the Red Sox to help educate the public about the benefits of Romneycare. Again, no one had a problem—just like no one has problems with government efforts to educate the public about Social Security benefits, or flu vaccinations, or school lunches, or any other benefits and protections we’ve written into law as a humane and decent society.
But today, the anti-government zealots who have taken over the once-proud Republican Party feel they must burn our village to save it. They are actively trying to prevent Americans who have been too poor or sick to get health insurance from knowing that all three branches of their democratically elected government have passed and upheld a law that will finally allow them to see a doctor without going broke.
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