Hoyer Finally Admits the Obvious: Health Care Bill Killed the Dems in 2010 - FDL

[eridani]

70. Why is no one mentioning the lies about "cutting Medicare" that were the critical factor

--in turning the high-turnout older demographic against Dems in 2010? The one thing that the Repukes were yelling loudest about is that HCR "cut Medicare." This is a lie--it merely eliminates subsidies to Medicare Advantange. What Democrats absolutely REFUSED to do was to defend the more efficient traditional GOVERNMENT Medicare. Instead they just went on about preventive care physicals for people on Medicare--nice, but not enough to overcome the fear about having benefits cut.

The fact is that HCR is extremely hard to defend on the basis of fundamental values, because the fundamental value that it is based on is that people ought to have access to health care determined by how much money they have. It is possible to go for a values defenst if you ignore that, though. What I am doing is just saying "It helps people. It would have helped even more people if we could have gotten big money out of the process."