Monday, March 31, 2014

"Let's not pretend that this new policy is the affordable health care savior that many of us were hoping for," Wee concludes. "For us, our new plan is a big financial hit for a product that does not make it any easier to get basic health care."

Plenty of ammo for anti-Obamacare ads in New York Times - Byron York/Washington Examiner @ByronYork

Some conservative political groups have run into trouble making ads that criticize Obamacare. The ads were intended to showcase "horror stories" from the Democrats' national health care overhaul, but instead attracted zealous fact-checking and ferocious pushback from media outlets and liberal activists....

So here is a suggestion, free of charge, for Americans for Prosperity: Make a few anti-Obamacare ads with factual claims taken entirely from the pages of The New York Times.

The Kochs could start with a recent op-ed by a man named Eric Wee, who just happens to be a former Washington Post reporter. Wee supported Obamacare when it was passed, he explained, but said: "What I didn't count on was that it would make things harder for me and my wife."...

It's a perfect Koch Obamacare ad: Concise, meaningful and vetted by the New York Times.

There are others. There was the piece about New York City's "professional and cultural elite" who were dismayed to find their coverage canceled. The woman who rued the adverse social effects of "daring to complain about Obamacare." Other individuals facing higher costs and narrower choices. And more.

In making ads, some conservatives have tried to swing for the fences, searching for cases of spectacular suffering to illustrate Obamacare's damage. But what about focusing on the heavy, if ordinary, burdens the new system is placing on people like Eric Wee and millions of other Americans?

Of course, there will still be pushback from the Left. Critics and fact-checkers will undoubtedly complain that the ads, although accurate, lack "context." But who cares? The material is there for the Kochs to use — right in the pages of the New York Times.