The cognitive dissonance in this commercial boggles the mind.

Conservatives seem to lack empathy on a grand scale, which is pretty vital to understanding what's funny and what amuses because someone you dislike is being put down. What also seems to escape them is that "the man," AKA those with money, power, etc. can't do satire well as it's never funny to try and put down the powerless.

This is also funded by the Koch Brothers, who managed to have one bro with cancer yet they keep formaldehyde, a known carcinogen that they produce by the ton, out of EPA regulations by basically bribing enough congresspeople. Cognitive dissonance doesn't even begin to describe the level of fucked up these assholes have achieved.

I dunno. A man getting kicking in the crotch is just run of the mill humor.

But a man losing his job, his apartment, his wife, turning into a dumpster dwelling homeless alcoholic THEN getting kicked in the crotch so hard he throws up an entire stomach worth of Steel Reserve? Hilarious!

Once again, it's adherence to Saint Reagan (as well as an intense hatred for the "undeserving poor") that started all of this shit.

His policy of ensuring that nobody should ever get the best service from a government employee started with getting rid of government-employed workers no longer getting the same standard salary as their private-sector counterparts (like doctors, for example). The long-term goal wasn't to prove themselves correct that government can't provide service, it was to rig the game and CAUSE government service to be less appealing than an alternative that was privately run.

I would have thought that the idiots voting Republican would have noticed that private "solutions" for basic things often cost more, are governed by cutbacks in the name of someone's bonus, and are riven with more corruption and fewer chances for redress than ones run by the state.

"Like it's about pieces of paper."

(Odd. Adding a carat and a dash to make an arrow deleted the rest of my comment)

Do what, now?

For Democrats, or at least the ones I've heard talk about this, it's about getting everyone to have some basic kind of health coverage so, among other things, medical conditions get treated early and don't show up in the ER where they cause premiums to go up and people to go bankrupt. It's so people aren't tied to employers for fear of losing coverage and so those with preexisting conditions aren't kicked to the curb to die. It's so you can have insurance that doesn't pull shit to get your money then screw you when you need treatment so some HMO manager can get a larger bonus this quarter.

And here I was thinking it's about getting to see a doctor if you're poor or not.

That's kind of a given with the whole trying to not bankrupt people and all.

It's also good to remember that it's the GOP that made it ILLEGAL for the government to negotiate the prices of medication it purchases from pharmaceutical companies. I'm kind of amazed they didn't legislate that all gov't offices had to purchase their paper by the sheet from the copiers at Kinko's at full color rates for every unmarked sheet.

Democratic messaging on the ACA has been uniformly terrible, but at least it hasn't been scare tactics. Two sentences off the top of my head to summarize it:

"Obamacare imposes long overdue, common sense regulations on health insurance so that insurers have to pay for treatment when you need it. A broad base of affordable health insurance will be made available for people currently without insurance, with tax credits to help offset the cost."

So how is that "pieces of paper"? Just because they say it in an Al Gore barebones and boring way doesn't mean it's not important. In fact, not using a bunch of emotionally charged language that's otherwise meaningless (though I do detest the use of "common sense" and have done so ever since Bush II drove it into the ground, set it on fire and pissed on the ashes) is a nice contrast to the GOP.

That hope is the most compelling reason I've ever seen for believing in God. I hope with you.