President embraces ObamaCare label

[cal04]

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/185877-president-embraces-obamacare-label

President Obama is embracing the term “ObamaCare” on the campaign stump, attempting to turn the tables on critics who use it in a derogatory way.

“They call it ObamaCare?” the president told supporters at a St. Louis fundraiser Tuesday evening. “I do care! You should care, too.”

Earlier in the day, Obama told an audience in Dallas, “Folks go around saying ObamaCare. That’s right — I care. … That’s their main agenda? That’s your plank? Is making sure 30 million people don’t have health insurance?”

(snip)
“I have no problem with people saying Obama cares. I do care,” the president said in Minnesota, the first stop of his rural bus tour this summer. “If the other side wants to be the folks that don’t care, that’s fine with me. I do care.”

[ellisonz]

1. Damn straight.

:fistbump:

[nxylas]

2. Good move

Turn the tables on the fuckers.

[Vinca]

3. Good move - it's a great name for the plan and people know what you're talking about.

And embracing it will make Republican heads explode.

[rgbecker]

4. I'm hoping he cares enough to embrace the OWS crowds soon.

I'm supporting Obama and I hope he continues to tear into the Republican's who are setting up roadblocks to America's recovery.

[Cigar11]

5. Smart move ...

by the President.

[Igel]

6. Yep.

Strike 1. Obama. He sure care. Yep, he care a lot.

'Nuff said?

Strike 2. He'll take care of you. I take care of my son. When he wasn't where he was supposed to be yesterday, I pulled out all the stops to track him down and make sure he was where he was supposed to be.

"Care" requires a preposition. "He cares" is "he cares about (whoever)" with the object ellipted. That's what he intends.

But "Obamacare" is modeled on "Medicare", where it's less "caring about" and more "caring for." "Care for" is a three-edged sword. I care for my mother and son, which means I monitor where they go and what they do and keep them pretty much in line because, well, my mother has dementia and my son is in elementary school. Neither gets the dignity and rights of an adult. Today, however, I'm caring for my son because he's sick. In both cases I'm saying that they can't take care of themselves because they're incapacitated or incompetent.

I also "care for" my wife and kid in the sense that I do what's right for them and expend effort on their behalf. But this requires that I treat them with dignity. If I cared for the population of the US in that way, it would be hard to kick one group in order to help the other group. I'd also be hard pressed to condemn my wife while defending my kid. Unless I was going back to the "you don't have any rights because I'm in charge" POV.

The right's take on "Obamacare" is that it *will* be run like the Post Office, and is based more on the assumption that everybody's incompetent than they're sick. It's concern at the expense of independence, not concern out of a sense of responsibility for the entire public or out of affection. It's Obama-centered care, not citizen- or patient-centered care, the claim was. Now Obama's played enough of a word game that the opponents' word games are no worse. Oops.

Even "take care of" would be less problematic. I take care of my wife, who needs no real assistance and with no impugning of her dignity or independence, as well as my son.

Worse, he does all this in a dog-whistle sort of way, in which *Obama* is one one blowing the dog whistle for one group but I suspect another group will attend to it most closely. Stannous pinnae.

[boxman15]

7. Smart move by the president.

He's positioning himself to be able to defend and better sell the Affordable Care Act if it isn't shot down by the Supreme Court and so that if it is shot down, he can campaign against the Roberts Court for shooting down the law.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. Good

You can't say "Obamacare" without "care"- something that most Republican Tea Partiers don't seem to know anything about.