Facts just killed the Obamacare haters: How the lunatics finally lost all credibility

[DonViejo]

Previously, Republican lawmakers' hysteria was taken seriously. But in the face of stunning data, it's a new day

JIM NEWELL

No one is happier with Kathleen Sebelius’ resignation as HHS secretary than Kathleen Sebelius. After years of implementing the Obama administration’s complex, signature piece of law, it is now time to relax and play a little golf, or give well-compensated speeches, or become a lobbyist — whatever. Anything else will be better. Treat yourself to a sit-down and a peach schnapps, Kathleen.

One notch down on the list of happiest, we find members of the Republican Party, who intend to use the upcoming Senate confirmation hearing of OMB chief Sylvia Mathews Burwell to replace Sebelius as an opportunity to smoke out the truth on the perceived failure of the Affordable Care Act. “Republicans,” Politico writes, ”hope to turn Sylvia Mathews Burwell’s nomination to run the Department of Health and Human Services… into a proxy war over Obamacare.” The confirmation “presents an ideal opportunity to examine the failures that are Obamacare,” Senator Ted Cruz notes. Obamacare will be put on trial, in the greatest political show this fair country has ever witnessed. And in the end… the Affordable Care Act will continue existing and Democrats will probably easily muster the now-50 votes they need to break a filibuster.

But what arguments do Republicans hope to make, exactly? Because the grounds supporting their chief claim — that Obamacare has been an “unmitigated disaster,” to put it in the words of every Republican whose spoken on the issue thus far — are receding as more and more numbers trickle out. If Burwell does her preparation, what Republicans hope to be an ambush may turn into the administration’s best public opportunity yet to spread word of the law’s successes.

The GOP continues to think it can erase reports of millions of uninsured people getting insurance, at affordable rates, by through its strategy of deeming any and all positive statistics as “cooked.” Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, in particular, wins a creativity award for her remarks this weekend linking the Burwell selection to the overall fakeness of the administration’s “numbers.” Burwell is quick with numbers, Blackburn notes — not as a compliment, as it’s usually meant when describing a nominee to lead a cabinet department, but as an indication that the administration intends to use this mystical numerate facility of Burwell’s to help them “spin the numbers”:

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http://www.salon.com/2014/04/15/facts_just_killed_the_obamacare_haters_how_the_lunatics_finally_lost_all_credibility/