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LOOKING FOR LIFE BEYOND CABLE NEWS AND FINDING THAT RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
- Louis BrandeisTension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
- Chinese ProverbRecent Comments
Whatever Works 
Sadly, I am not surprised.
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And even more sadly, we let these people vote!
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Kind of a neat twist at the end with the woman who was so good humored at having been caught out: “You did good”. Maybe amusement at the inconsistency is a small and friendly nudge toward more alert thinking!
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Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. ” . . . more alert thinking?” These people Kimmel caught are either all dumber than a sack of rocks or, more likely, completely disengaged from thinking outside their own small, distracted worlds. That the woman wasn’t humiliated when told the ACA and ObamaCare were the same says to me that she sees the issue as unimportant for her to know. A representative democracy can’t work when it represents the unthinking. Shame on her.
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Jim – there was a similar bit on Jon Stewart the other night. And I don’t think Americans’ grasp of civics or issues will improve. Ever. And that’s even sadder.
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Oh dear – you’re probably right. I keep expecting people to at least partly be motivated to shift or adjust their beliefs when confronted with contradictions.
So now I’m wondering if Kimmel’s little experiment had any value of a ‘teachable moment’. I don’t have TV, don’t know Kimmel’s show, don’t know if he would for instance follow up with a guest who could speak what the experiment revealed. I suppose such a possibility is me being too optimistic again! 🙂 (I’ll see what I can find on that Kimmel show).
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maggie – Kimmel is a comedian and his late-night show is in the tradition of Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. No TV????
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Suggests we may be little better prepared for democracy than the Egyptians, Libyans, or Syrians. Sad.
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Welcome J – scary thought but there’s truth in it. Sadly, sadly, too much truth. I said to maggie in another thread (or someone) that American ignorance of geography is even more appalling.
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A few points:
1) There are things, if presented separately, people like about Obamacare. As long as those things are presented without their negative co-parts, people will say they like them. Such is the nature of the chimerica monstrosity that is Obamacare.
2) Most people don’t know the formal names of most significant bills and laws in America. This isn’t limited to Obamacare. The formal names are normally only barely descriptive of their effects. We wouldn’t have “common names” for them elsewise.
3) Sad to say, but the average voter is pretty ignorant of the laws…and approximately 50% of them are, by statistical requirement, more igorant then that. And that, Moe, is a non-partisan problem.
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And on that jonolan, we agree. I sometimes think that we get a bit dumber with each generation. Forgive me for getting all ‘back in my day’ here, but my class didn’t get out of high school without a good understanding of civics.
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Allow me to add one more thing that this video showed clearly:
Obama has divided the nation so much and is so loathed by so many that putting his name on something is tantamount to causing many people to dislike the thing so named as well.
And that will be the core of whatever legacy history gives to Obama.
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I disagree on that one jonolan . . . the failure has been one of ‘messaging’ the program. It’s been widely and very successfully demonized and very poorly defended by its advocates. I think it’s going to work as the first step toward what must happen. 1) decouple insurance from employment and then 2) put more emphasis on cost containment and reward outcomes instead of volume. I think the first is going to happen much more rapidly than expected. So history may look at half a century of doing basically nothing about a looming disaster until the ACA. IT’s a step away from the precipice. And it’s only step one. Nose is now under the tent – a good thing.
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Everything you just said ALSO applies to why it’s unpopular. It’s the first step towards something, but that something could be good and fitting with America or it could be bad and unsuited for America, i.e., Single Payer aka Socialist Medicine.
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Everyone acknowledges a single truth – the US spends absurd amounts per person for health care while leaving tens of millions of people uninsured and then paying for them via taxes and higher insurance rates. More important than any ideology is the urgent need to fix something that will hurt us very badly if we ignore it.
I still think the very smartest way would be Medicare For All, with those under 65 paying for it just like they do now iwth Insurance companies. We could even do what the Swiss do and turn it all over to private insurers but with cost containment conditions. Companies cna enter the health insurance market only if they create a separate non-profit division – and of course they can offer for profit supplemental plans and keep all their non medical lines of insurance in hte original for profit model.
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