Why actual ACA ‘victims’ are so elusive
Its practically a running joke at this point. The Affordable Care Acts conservative detractors have spent the last several months in a desperate search for Obamacare victims to be used in various partisan attacks, and quite a few regular folks have received quite a bit of attention.
The problem, of course, is that all of these examples, once theyre subjected to even minor scrutiny, have fallen apart the horror stories really arent so horrible. Michael Hiltzik speculated last week that there may not be any genuine anecdotes to bolster the rights claims.
Whats going on here? Paul Krugman offers one possible explanation:
Even supporters of health reform are somewhat surprised by the rights apparent inability to come up with real cases of hardship. Surely there must be some people somewhere actually being hurt by a reform that affects millions of Americans. Why cant the right find these people and exploit them?
The most likely answer is that the true losers from Obamacare generally arent very sympathetic. For the most part, theyre either very affluent people affected by the special taxes that help finance reform, or at least moderately well-off young men in very good health who can no longer buy cheap, minimalist plans. Neither group would play well in tear-jerker ads.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-actual-aca-victims-are-so-elusive