Report from the Koch's Creepy Carnival

by David Weigel

The stilt walker was the first clue that something strange had come to Washington. A few long blocks from the Capitol, with the dome in full view, a colorless midsize tent was ringed by circus performers, waving and beckoning tourists into something-or-other. It was Wednesday evening, and the street traffic was sparse, but a few tourists made it in, where they signed in with one of a dozen red-shirted, iPad-wielding libertarian millennials.

Then they were in—they’d made it to the Creepy Carenival. This was the big summer project of Generation Opportunity, the youth outreach group funded by at least $5 million from the Koch network to tamp down under-30 enrollment in health care exchanges. Over the fall and winter, they’d worked tailgates and raffled off iPads. Now, after weeks of promo, they’d find out if free food and circus games could be as popular as free beer. Perfect timing, too: The D.C. Circuit had just ruled their way the day before, arguing that Obamacare subsidies (which made health care plans affordable for middle- and lower-income people) were illegal in states that did not set up their own health care exchanges.

After a good-size crowd had found the tent, Generation Opportunity’s president, Evan Feinberg, took his place onstage. A tightrope-walking blade juggler took a respectful break behind him, straddling and listening, as Feinberg laid out the manifesto.

“Young Americans have been asked to pay as much as three times as much for their health care to get nothing out of it—to pay for an older, sicker generation’s health care,” said Feinberg. “To pay for an intrusive bureaucracy that we can’t trust.”

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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/07/inside_the_anti_obamacare_carnival_libertarians_are_celebrating_halbig_and.single.html