Koch brothers, New Anti-ACA Ads, Kings Of America

According to Talking Points Memo, the Koch brothers have realized the ineffectiveness, folly and ridiculousness of their actor or false story laden Anti-ACA ads. Apparently, the uber wealthy “wanna be” kings of America, have moved their campaign to a more direct approach.

Once “foiled” across social media (except for conservative social media), and on progressive television media, for the phony advertisements the Kochs and conservative America have changed strategy. Hereafter we will refer to as advertisements as “ads.” 

Talking Points Memo

Koch Group Abandons Obamacare ‘Horror’ Stories After Fact-Check Backlash

 Excerpts

“People don’t like political ads. I don’t like them either,” a woman tells the camera to start AFP’s new ads, announced Monday by the group. “But health care isn’t about politics. It’s about people.” 

She then criticizes the law for canceled health plans, narrow provider networks and higher premiums while linking Landrieu and Udall to those problems — but she speaks in general talking points. The new ad buy is $1.7 million across the two states, and the spots will run for three weeks.

UPDATE, 2:35 p.m. ET

“We are currently on-air with many different types of ads, including personal testimony of Obamacare impact,” AFP spokesman Levi Russell told TPM. “This is the same strategy we’ve been using for 6 months. This does not represent a shift in strategy.” 

Though the group billed these as “new ads” multiple times throughout its announcement, Russell noted that a similar version has run in North Carolina against Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) prior to the ad buys in Colorado and Louisiana.

Tell Senator Landrieu: ObamaCare Doesn’t Work

Not only do the Kochs spare no expense to control our world, they also deploy any and all strategies to shape our world to their libertarian paradigm, to their corporate subservience, and to their personal “linking.”

 

Anti-ACA Ads as embedded above would be far more effective if the ad included mention of the need to provide (alternative) coverage to the many millions who do not have coverage. Koch ads are void of remedy for the suffering of the uninsured. Specifically, how about……

…. a few words on how they would deal with being denied a life-sustaining procedure simply due to a job change?  

…. being diagnosed with an illness and you (are one of millions who) did not think you needed coverage. In the past, insurance companies would require self-disclosure of the illness and cancellation if not honestly disclosed. 

…. Koch resistance to the closing of the “donut hole” for our seniors! 

…. provisions of the ACA that work to reduce payments from pharmaceutical companies to physicians. Ever, wonder why your doctor might appear overly eager to renew your prescriptions? Less payments from “Big Pharma” to our physicians, directly lower the cost of prescription drugs. 

Pharmaceutical companies do not simply “eat” the cost of payments to physicians; they pass-on the cost to the consumer. In fact, with reduced payments from Pharma Reps to physicians we might find physicians more willing to expand prescription options to other manufacturers products. Rest assured, Big Pharma payment options from pharmaceutical reps to your doctor may overshadow your desire for a prescription drug produced by that other manufacturer.

In a few days, we plan to publish a piece about how the ACA has helped to reduce pharmaceutical payments to physicians. We have also read the amount of money from pharmaceutical companies have dropped due to expiring patents on certain products. It is not our intent to attribute what you are about to see solely to the Affordable Care Act.

However, the ACA has contributed as follows.

A provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Physician Payment Sunshine Act, requires pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies to go public with payments to doctors. Any payment over $10 USD has become required public reporting. In my world, that is called transparency. Take a quick and basic look at a ProPublica slope graph. 

Ultimately, the Kochs and their operatives do not address a replacement for the ACA because they do not want a replacement. And, that affects millions more than those who are being forced to consider and accept higher cost policies; in some cases,despite their willingness to live with high risk “fathom” policies. “Fathom polices” are lower premium policies with extremely high deductibles, extremely high co-pays and may include unknown service exclusions.  

People tend to find-out about service exclusions when they have dire need for the service. Try getting your premiums back when you find out about a service exclusion. 

When the Kochs drop use of actors and “false story” ads that is commendable despite serving to save face. 

Where were the Kohcs and their $500 million expenditures on anti-health care reform before Barack Obama and Democrats move the policy to legislation. is it possible the Kochs had no issues with national health care reform as long as Republicans supported national reform?  We suspect that is factually the case.

The Affordable Care Act Is Humanitarian; The GOP Is Not

There are times in life when we can no longer make mistakes. Healthcare Reform is good for the nation, the people and our greater psychical and spiritual society. 

It is important to remember, healthcare reform has been pursued as policy from the Democrats only. The Republican Party still resents universal healthcare in the State of Massachusetts (Mitt Romney as Governor when enacted).   The GOP has no interest in improving the health of people nor are they at all concerned about people denied  coverage for no reason other than better Profit and Loss Statements for Big Insurance, Big Pharma and other allied products corporations.  

 

We have recently posted a few pieces related to the ongoing fight to implement the ACA. We are borrowing and posting a couple of screeds with graphics from Connect The Dots USA Dot Com. 

All this dysfunction has led to some pretty shameful results for the U.S. healthcare system. 49 million (16% of the U.S. population) have no health insurance. 81% of the uninsured (40 million) are U.S. citizens; the other 19% (9 million) include both legal residents and undocumented immigrants.  

Those without insurance often delay getting care until they are really sick and end up in the ER. This delay results in the preventable deaths of 44,000 uninsured adults under 65. Finally, 62% of all bankruptcies —600,000 families in 2007 — are due at least in part to medical bills. And whatever costs these families still can’t pay get shifted to the rest of us. In no other developed country in the world do people die or go bankrupt because of lack of health insurance or access to care.