It's really baffling. How could a 2000 plus page complex law which makes no economic sense known as Obamacare possibly fail?
Sarah Kliff of General Electric Vox is also baffled but specifically about the utter failure of Obamacare in Massachusetts. Of course, just about everything except the kitchen sink and Obamacare itself is blamed. So let us now watch Kliff play the blame game with the notable exception of you-know-what:
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!!!
The White House Director of Progressive Media needs to send out an emergency response team to Sarah Kliff of General Electric Vox to get her "mind right" again for going off-message on ObamaCare since the debate is "over." Got that? The debate is OVER! Except that the debate is not quite over when one of the biggest ObamaCare cheerleaders is beginning to cast aspersions upon her formerly beloved program. This is starting to become something of a "disturbing" pattern for our Miss Kliff who recently underwent a rapid response mind change when an administration official quickly turned her around on her initial condemnation of a politically motivated change in the way the supposedly non-political Census Bureau gathers insurance information. Her quick turnaround became a source for much mirth and mockery on the Web. However, it now seems that Citizen Kliff has relapsed and is in dire need of another mind fix as you can see by the very title of her recent article, If you like your health plan, you might lose it. Again. Here are some excerpts from Temporary Apostate Kliff's heresy:
The morning of April 15 had an indication that it would contain an historic moment. Sarah Kliff, formerly of the Washington Post Wonkblog and now with General Electric Vox, appeared to be finally breaking through her liberal coccoon. Yes, she tweeted some actual Obamacare criticism of the administration over the suspicious changes in the way the Census Bureau measures the uninsured. Alas, it was not to be. With startling speed, Kliff got her "mind right" with a correctional tweet in less than an hour after a Ministry of Truth talk with an administration offical.
Let us now go back to that bright moment on April 15 when our Miss Kliff appeared to be awakening from her long liberal stupor:
Townhall's Guy Benson today took Washington Post's Aaron Blake and Vox.com senior editor Sarah Kliff to task for uncritically furthering Obama White House spin that 5 million Americans have successfully registered for ObamaCare.
This is patently false, Benson charges, noting that, at best, the number is somewhere closer to 4 million, assuming the very generous estimate of a 20 percent "non-payment" rate on the registered policies. Benson explains (emphasis mine):
As we have seen, the television networks have avoided the controversy of President Obama unilaterally delaying another Obamacare provision in the law yet again. Even more absurd is when a newspaper writer whose main task is to cover healthcare also neglects to mention that same elephant in the room. Such was the case with Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post who breezily reported on the details of the latest delay in the employer mandate but does not address the obvious presidential overreach of ignoring the provisions of the statute.
It was left to the readers of the Kliff article to go where Sarah dare not tread. It was another case in which the comments section was way more informative than the article itself. Here is Kliff defining "rewriting" as "relaxing":
Here's a nice catch by Kyle Wingfield at the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
In late October, continuing a four-year pattern of making such claims, MIT's Jonathan Gruber, who along with Ezekiel "Zeke the Bleak" Emanuel is considered one of the two "architects" of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, pointed to a study which claimed that "the Affordable Care Act is working even better than expected, producing more coverage for much less money." But, as Wingfield noted in his Friday column, Gruber sang a totally different tune when quoted in the Washington Post on Thursday.
Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you'd like to do,
You gotta have a dream, if you don't have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true? ---"Happy Talk" from "South Pacific."
Carrie Budoff Brown was bubbling over with joy about a supposed Obamacare "surge" in her Politico article. Yes, supposedly massive new Obamacare numbers were suddenly showing up in the past few days. But what did they really mean? Fortunately for those praying for Obamacare success, Brown did not burst that joy bubble until well into the article with crucial caveats to the "surge" numbers. First let us look at the Happy Talk Brown presents at the beginning of the article before we delve into the buried inconvenient truths:
Can you imagine The Washington Post publishing a guide to how to survive your relatives’ negative questions about the war in Iraq? On Monday, Sarah Kliff of the Post’s Wonkblog posted “A guide to surviving Obamacare debates at Thanksgiving.” That’s assuming you’re getting armed to defend Obamacare just like a good Postie.
“This Thanksgiving, it's a pretty safe bet that debates over Obamacare will be just about as central as turkey,” Kliff wrote. “As Wonkblog readers hit the road and head home, we didn't want to leave you totally unprepared.” Don't let the Ted Cruz-heads ruin your meal:
If you are a health policy reporter for the Washington Post and take upon yourself the role of cheerleader for Obamacare, the task can be quite challenging. Therefore one must admire the effort that Sarah Kliff displays into putting a positive spin on this bit of pathetically sad news:
The District of Columbia's insurance marketplace has enrolled exactly five people in health plans, according to documents released by the Senate Finance Committee on Friday.
As Obamacare’s launch is described even by the Obamacare architects as a “debacle,” Washington Post health policy reporter Sarah Kliff penned a Sunday article titled “5 Myths About the Affordable Care Act."
You could stop dead at Alleged Myth Number One. “Americans will be forced to buy health insurance.” Kliff claimed “The health-care law's individual mandate, despite its name, isn't meant to force Americans into health plans.” What? If you have to pay a staggering fine, it’s not a force issue?
Oops!
Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post has been forced to perform yet another ObamaCare Oops!
When last we encountered the Polyanna ObamaCare cheerleader Kliff she was claiming that young people were among the more enthusiastic ObamaCare shoppers based on evidence that ranged from nil to none. This empty claim came on the heels of her previous ObamaCare Oops when Kliff, after hailing one Chad Henderson of Georgia for supposedly enrolling in ObamaCare, was forced to backtrack the very next day after Peter Suderman of Reason performed some real journalism and discovered that Chad's "success" story was false. You would think Ms Kliff would have learned from her tragically funny experience but noooooo. She has now made an error of such proportions that basically involves thousands of Chad Hendersons. Here is Kliff last Thursday happily announcing that "ObamaCare just cut Oregon's uninsured rate by 10 percent":
(UPDATE: See Chad's response to Washington Post's Sarah Kliff at the end of this post.) If what Reason's Peter Suderman is reporting is correct — and he certainly appears to have done the kind of digging you would expect conscientious journalists to do — the establishment press's lionization of Chad Henderson the Fantabulous Obamacare Enrollee is about to fall apart.
Suderman spoke at length with Chad Henderson's father, Bill Henderson, and uncovered a litany of contradictions, inconsistencies, and what should have been red flags to journalists who apparently decided that the story was too good to check (links are in original; bolds are mine):