keep your government hands off my medicare

Remember Senator Chuck Grassley’s peddling of the misinformation that the ACA would mean aging Americans would face “death panels” who would decide if they received treatment or left to die?Īnd, of course, the GOP fueled those protests mobilized by the slogan “Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare!” and refused to inform those protestors in any concerted way that Medicare was in fact a version of government-run health care.Īt a 2009 town hall, then-President Barack Obama related, “I got a letter the other day from a woman. Republicans have long lambasted the ACA, even if erroneously, as socialist policy, trying to scare Americans, largely ignorant of what socialism actually is, with this political bogeyman that seems to conjure delusions of an oppressive autocratic government take-over their lives. Had the Supreme Court ruling abetted the Republican agenda of dismantling Obamacare, the fig leaf of the GOP’s false promises would have been shredded, exposing in all its nakedness not just Republicans’ utter perfidiousness but their complete lack of concern for Americans’ basic welfare, as well as their guiding principle that the role of government is not to prioritize the meeting of people’s basic needs in day-to-day governing and policy-making. Trump and Republicans have long promised an alternative healthcare plan for Americans to replace the ACA but in fact have materialized no proposal whatsoever since the ACA was ratified over a decade ago. Should the Republican challenge have successfully persuaded the court that the ACA was in fact unconstitutional, tens of millions of Americans would have potentially found themselves bereft of health insurance, including some 133 million American who have protected pre-existing conditions.

Those seven justices may very well have done Republicans an unsolicited political favor, saving them from another possible exposure as the autocratic, anti-democratic emperors with no clothes that they are.

Keep your government hands off my medicare