Thursday, July 24, 2014

COMMUNICATING WITH THE FEAR MONGERS

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I am currently trying to engage with my district congressman about a tweet he sent out yesterday about the Affordable Care Act and seniors. Of course I am disturbed by the use of the term "Obamacare" to begin with, but maybe he thinks it helps his Tweet character count. That is not the crux of my problem with the tweet however. It basically says that seniors in the 12th Congressional District have had their Medicare Advantage cut by about 10 percent since Obamacare became law. Included in the tweet is a link to the study. 

The words "have had" appear and later a link to a study offered by the "American Action Forum" showing supposed cuts to Medicare Advantage in 2015. ( The American Action Forum is a sister organization of the American Action Network, a center-right organization funded by right and far right donors. ) This is 2014 so the term "have had" means before now. The Tweet attempts to insinuate that the supposed cuts in 2015 "have had" a deleterious effect on seniors since 2009 when the Affordable Care Act was enacted. 
Also the statement totally ignores the fact that the administration in April rescinded some of the future 2015 cuts:

I do not know how my dialogue with the congressman will work out ( so far the communication is only through his Communications Director ) but I have expectations that it will be warping, skewing, dodging, evasive stuff career politicians are so good at. I do know that my list of Fear Mongering Politicians keeps growing ( Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Darrell Issa, 
Jim Jordan, Rick Perry, and now Pat Tiberi OH-12 )