It is about enslaved minds not Conservative change
New York Times contributing op-ed writer Thomas B. Edsall wrote an incredulous article titled “Obamacare Turned Voters Against Sharing the Wealth” that is worth reading. After reading one should understand the cyclicality of Right Wing misinformation. Thomas B. Edsall starts with a bold statement.
With the advent of the Affordable Care Act, the share of Americans convinced that health care is a right shrank from a majority to a minority.
This shift in public opinion is a major victory for the Republican Party. It is part of a larger trend: a steady decline in support for redistributive government policies.
Edsall bases that statement on a couple of studies, specifically “How Elastic Are Preference For Redistribution? Evidence From Randomized Survey Experiments.” The paper is well written and even provides the test that participants took. The conclusion from the experiment.
The General Social Survey shows there has been a slight decrease in stated support for redistribution in the US since the 1970s, even among those who self-identify as having below-average income. …
Standard models predict that support for redistribution should increase with income inequality, yet there has been little evidence of greater demand for redistribution over the past thirty years in the US|despite historic increases in income concentration.
This is a far cry from Edsall’s assertion that some sort of victory was won by the Conservative ideology. It is much deeper than a win or lose for any party Republican, Democrat, or otherwise or for any ideology. It is really about a misinformed populace.
Edsall points out that in 2006 Americans believed that health care should be a government protected right by a 69-28% margin and now they do not by a 45-52% margin. He points out that the decline in said belief occurred when then Senator Obama started campaigning on the issue. What he failed to mention is that as health care again became part of the debate, forces against any type of universal health care started the misinformation campaign that continuously misled Americans.
Edsall acknowledges that millions would lose their insurance if the Supreme Court rules against the Affordable Care Act in the King v. Burwell case. He gives the impression that Republicans are working on a viable alternative. The reality is that there is not a viable alternative. Only single payer or Medicare for All would save more than the Affordable Care Act as it insured us all.
Edsall points out that Americans polled want all the great things in Obamacare. They want insurance companies to accept pre-existing conditions. They want children up to the age of 26 to be able to remain on parents’ insurance policies. They want companies with over 100 employees to be forced to provide healthcare. The only unfavorable option of consequence from the poll was the individual mandate. Moreover, the poll did an experiment to determine if well informed people would change their opinions. When informed even the individual mandate received more than 50% support.
Bad compromises were made when designing the Affordable Care Act to make the experience of most people with their health care almost undetectable except for the new benefits. Even with these bad compromises the Affordable Care Act is coming in at a much lower cost than expected, $142 billion dollars lower, 11% lower. The uninsured rate fell by about 33% and 16.4 million more Americans have been able to get health insurance. Most Americans do not know the successes. Most Americans do not know that Obamacare has actually increased employment and decreased the budget.
Thomas B. Edsall points out that Larry Levitt, the senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation said any Republican alternative would “tend to be quite a bit less generous” than under Obamacare, and that “low-income people, in particular, were likely to end up with very skimpy insurance” and fewer low-income people would be covered under the program. When that occurs everybody’s insurance will increase because the cost of the system including increased use of emergency rooms will be paid by the fewer people insured. Republican attempt to pay less will cost much more. And their misled constituents will balk.
Edsall tries to morph the perception that health care as a right is no longer a majority of Americans into an American shift to conservatism. He does this for a reason. He wants to stymie any conversation on topics that would offend the continued growth of the plutocracy. He wants Democrats to fear talking against the Trans Pacific Partnership, carried interest, higher taxes on the wealthy, and other policies that would redistribute ill-gained wealth and income back into society at large.
The American Plutocracy has been aware for decades that a well informed population is a danger to those who continue to extract undeserved wealth from society. They engaged the church to mislead the population at large. Kevin Kruse details this in his book “One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America” The Powell Memo drafted by Lewis Powell detailed what amounts to a misinformation campaign that would have to be run throughout society. Schools, Universities, and the media had to be engaged to misinform. Institutes with official sounding names (e.g., Heritage Foundation) had to be formed to give fallacies unwarranted credibility.
With all the billions being thrown to misinform Americans, is it any wonder that most are misinformed? Is it any wonder that most think the American dysfunctional medical system is better than systems like those from Canada, New Zealand, France, Germany, Taiwan, or other industrialized nations with much less cost and much better outcomes?
Americans are not getting more Conservative. Americans are scared. They are told that taxing the wealthy hurts the economy. They are told that increasing the minimum wage hurts the economy. They are told that Obamacare causes lost of jobs. They are told that regulations hurt us all. They are told that the wealthy is deserving of said wealth and that if they just work hard enough they can get there. These are all lies.
Unless the lies that are slowly metastasizing into the American psyche are refuted vociferously with the same passion of the liars, American will remain confused, not conservative. Their minds will remain enslaved to a Plutocracy tightening the chains.