The Washington Post’s Jonathan Bernstein:
Do Republicans believe that Obamacare is a disaster in the making? Or is it such an appealing program that they have to take extraordinary steps to undermine it? Reuters reports today that conservative groups are taking their campaign to undermine the law to ever new heights. As the Tea Party group FreedomWorks puts it: “We’re trying to make it socially acceptable to skip the exchange.” […]
At the same time they’re trying to undermine it, Republicans are loudly insisting that the program just won’t work — it will “collapse under its own weight,” as the talking point has it. For example, see the apparent attempt by Republican state governments to hype “rate shock” well beyond any reality. As Sarah Kliff argues today, Republicans have set expectations for the program so low that “if Godzilla doesn’t march in on Oct. 1 and gobble up our health insurance coverage and legions of IRS agents fail to microchip the masses, that could plausibly look like a success.”If they really believe that the Affordable Care Act will collapse on its own — that premiums will skyrocket, that people will lose what they have now, or whatever other horrors they’ve been asserting — then there’s no reason at all for any campaign to spread misinformation about the law or to encourage anyone to “skip the exchange.” Consumers would do that on their own. But Republicans apparently think they can’t take the risk that Obamacare will work out just fine.
It is an article of faith if you are a conservative or a Republican: ObamaCare is going to be a disaster, a trainwreck, a total mess. So if you are a Republican, and you want the Dems and Obama to be blamed for the mess that is Obama, why would you not just allow it to go into effect with full funding and sit back and watch the disaster? No, they have to sabotage it for it to be a trainwreck, for if Obamacare goes into affect fully funded and fully implemented, then the people will love on the level of Medicare and Social Security.
Meanwhile, there is something for everyone in this new ABC/Washington Post poll on abortion:
On the choice and reproductive freedom side, we have a majority of Americans—55 percent—who believe that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, compared to just 41 percent who believe it should be illegal in most or all cases. 54 percent oppose state legislation that Republicans are pushing in a number of states that makes it more difficult for abortion clinics to operate, with 37 percent strongly opposing it. A two thirds majority of Americans —66 percent—think the U.S. Constitution, and not the states, should set abortion law. So that’s all good. But then we have this results which will make the anti-freedom and anti-choice forces happy: a 56 percent majority thinks abortion should only be legal without restriction up to the 20 weeks that states like Texas keep passing, rather than the 24 weeks that the Supreme Court has said is constitutional. 24 weeks is the earliest possible point for viability of the fetus. 24 weeks is 6 months.
The Washington Post-ABC News poll also finds that “just 28% of Americans say the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting, the lowest number since 2007 and significantly below the least-popular stretches of the Iraq war.” President Obama, bring them all now home right now. Today. Don’t wait until August 2014.
Finally, the latest NBC-Wall Street Journal poll has bad news for the GOP: the American people can see through your game and excuses.
When you hear Republicans say that immigration reform must wait until the border is secure, do you think that is a legitimate concern that needs to be addressed first before immigration reform can take place, or they are using that as an excuse to block action on immigration reform?
Legitimate concern: 36
Excuse to block reform: 59
And that is before they actually block the bill from coming to the floor, and before the Republicans endorsed Rep. Steven King’s outrageously racist comments about Latinos but not expelling him from the Committee and the House.