ACA vs ObamacareFollow

Jimmy Kimmel asked peeps which they'd prefer.

To me Obamacare sounds comforting but i suppose the whole 'affordable' think appeals to many.

As you might have guessed many didn't realize that the two were one in the same.

No one can understand everything.

Obamacare sounds pretty sinister to me. Care has been a byword for murder since forever, and to make it worse, Obama's murdered an imperial ****-ton of people.

Obamacare sounds like a dictator's creed. Which is hilarious given it's a social program.

To be fair, as Smash pointed out, while most people have heard various terms, they aren't super informed about them. And in this case, the act of asking which one people prefer effectively tells them that they are two different things. So even though I suspect most people think they are the same thing, when asked the question that way, they think "I guess they're different things, or he wouldn't be asking this question". So they answer the question. Only those who are absolutely positive that they're correct that the two are the same thing are going to buck the assumption inherent in the question when they've got a camera pointed at them.

It's a derivation of the complex question fallacy. When you ask a question which itself assumes a given condition, people will tend to answer based on that assumption, even if they normally wouldn't assume it to be true. There's a whole host of reasons why this works.

Also: Editing. It's a comedy skit, right?

They may not, but the issue itself should be. Don't confuse the fact that some percentage of the people don't know all the facts about something with the assumption that this thing isn't important, or even that they're wrong.



I'd argue that the percentage of people who support Obamacare yet have little clue about what the system is/does is roughly equivalent to the percentage of people who oppose it sans-clue. That tells us nothing at all about whether the system is a good one, or a bad one though. Just a commentary on how social issues work. I'm pretty sure that 90% of the American colonists didn't understand anything at all about these things called "rights" that the folks in the constitutional conventions were going on about. But they supported them because it sounded good, or "taxation without representation" and "give me liberty or give me death", and a host of other slogans and rallying cries. Fact is that the masses are rarely inspired to large scale action based on informed decision (I'd suggest that it has never happened in the history of mankind actually), but rather by a good slogan and emotional appeal.


That fact doesn't mean that what their fighting for is good or bad though. The folks who cheered at **** rallies in the 30s were just as sure that what they were doing was "right" as the folks cheering Washington.

I can understand why you'd want to champion the causes of people who don't know all the facts.


True, the people who cheered **** and those shutting down Washington are all about the Right

The folks who cheered at **** rallies in the 30s were just as sure that what they were doing was "right" as the folks cheering Washington.

Henry Ford and Walt Disney?

Hits home, doesn't it? No, PBS documentary.

Edited, Oct 3rd 2013 9:30am by lolgaxe

I'd argue that the percentage of people who support Obamacare yet have little clue about what the system is/does is roughly equivalent to the percentage of people who oppose it sans-clue.

I'd argue that if fully implemented and without actual attempts at making it as difficult as possible to gain benefits, that ACA will be viewed as a jewel of the social safety net and running against it in 2016 would be political suicide.

Actually, everyone on all sides argues this, hence their current actions.

How many people who support Obamacare do so because they think they're going to get "free health care"? Like I said: They don't have a clue about how it really works.



Precisely. No clue how it really works. The percentage of people who would be able to obtain health insurance previously if only there was no preexisting condition issues is incredibly small. By far the largest group of people who had problems with health insurance (and the entire rational argued for needing health reform) was that they couldn't afford it, and their employer didn't provide it as a benefit.

Obamacare does not change that at all. And it arguably makes things worse for the working class folks who were already in that position, since it now forces them to pay a fine for not buying that health insurance that they can't afford. And the mandate regarding preexisting conditions will make it more likely that they can't afford it. And the requirements on small to medium sized businesses will increase the likelihood that they'll have their hours cut (so less money to pay for the insurance that they couldn't afford anyway). And it'll make it more likely that businesses which previously provided at least *some* health benefits (but maybe not stellar) will drop them because the costs are too high.

Many people will lose their existing health insurance because of Obamacare. And when they're faced with having to pay out of their own smaller pocketbooks for insurance on the exchanges, many of them will pay the fine/tax instead. The result is a lot of folks paying the government for the privilege of *not* having health insurance. Yeah. It's a totally screwed up law.



I think both sides were told to support or oppose it. The difference being that one side was convinced to support it by misleading them into thinking it would benefit them (ie: playing on their greed). The other was told to oppose it because it violated their principles *and* would hurt more people than it helped. The second group was at least not lied to.

DEATH PANELS

Obamacare got me free birth control pills.

But we still have to pay our full insurance premium each month.... well, what the employee doesn't already pay.

I heard a lot of small businesses who could not offer coverage to their employees before because it would cost too much are offering to kick in the cost of any premiums that people find on the exchanges, post subsidy. So someone making $16K/year who can get coverage for $100 a month with their subsidy may actually get it for free, if their employer chips in.

Those are the rare cases, though.