Obama Derangement Syndrome

Here's The Fact Checker at The Washington Post:

The problem with the original ad was two-fold. First, Boonstra, a cancer patient, suggested she had lost her “wonderful doctor” when in fact she could keep that doctor in the new plan. Second, her premiums were cut in half, from $1,100 a month to $571, and the savings were slightly more than the out-of-pocket costs permitted under the health care law. So it seemed highly suspicious that the costs were “unaffordable.” ...

On March 10, however, the Detroit News reported that Boonstra admitted that she had Premier Gold plan. That has an out-of-pocket cap of $5,100 a year.

In other words, her old plan cost $13,200 a year—before co-pays and other out-of-pocket expenses. The new plan is $11,952—including co-pays and out of pocket expenses. That’s a savings of more than $1,200 a year.

Boonstra’s response to this report was that it “can’t be true” because she was worried about high expenses early in the year and because she thought one of her prescription drugs was not covered. A spokesman for Blue Cross told the News that all of her prescriptions are covered and her co-pays on the drugs would help with meeting her out-of-pocket maximum.

In the meantime, her premium savings are building up every month.

So the whole ad is a lie. Surprise, surprise, huh?

But will it matter that it's a lie? Republican claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was a lie, too, but it got us to invade Iraq.

The billionaire Koch brothers are spending millions of dollars running these ads. Do you think that everyone who sees them will understand that they're simply lying? Of course not! Billionaires wouldn't be able to buy politicians - not so easily, at least - if this sort of thing didn't work.

Anyway, I like Cenk Uygur's description of this as 'Obama Derangement Syndrome,' because that's exactly right. This woman hates Barack Obama, so when people tell her the truth, her response is just that it "can't be true."

Obviously, that's just faith-based thinking. And it's very similar to the last Obamacare horror story I wrote about, where "Bette in Spokane" lost money because she refused to even use "that Obama website" which would have lowered her costs.

Yeah, it was just another lie that her costs were going up because of Obamacare, but it was a lie Republicans spread in their response to Obama's State of the Union speech. So it was probably a very effective lie, and that's all Republicans care about, isn't it?