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One-Third Don’t Know Obamacare and Affordable Care Act Are the Same
- jeffdavis 10y agoThen why are we trying to "get out the vote" to send these people to the polls? Let's encourage people to inform themselves, and participation will come naturally in time. Encouraging participation puts the cart before the horse.
- Synaesthesia 10y agoThe Republicans labeling the affordable health care act "Obamacare" and attacking it from day one was a significant propaganda victory, as we can see. In fact the law is very pro-corporate and could have been written by a moderate Republican - was very similar to the Massachusetts health care program instituted by Mitt Romney. Another very significant propaganda victory, about half of people in the US who think global warming is not caused by humans, or not happening.
- banku_brougham 10y agoThe other big succesful 'dark PR' campaign I can think of was the tabacco companies' attacks on health research on smoking. Probably this is a perenial strategy in societies that require the consent of the populace for government actions. Actually I suppose almost all wars fit this model.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- theseatoms 10y agoThe labelling of ACA as "Obamacare" will allow Republicans to save face while they preserve much of the substance of the law. Personally, I say leave it to the states...
- banku_brougham 10y agoSo many things could be better or much worse if left to the states.
- dexterdog 10y agoWhat would be worse except maybe the military?
- burkaman 10y agoEducation would probably be worse in some states if there were no federal standards or oversight.
- wlesieutre 10y agoVoting Rights Act of 1965?
- dexterdog 10y agoFunny, I thought people do nothing but complain about what a mess voting is.
- wlesieutre 10y agoIt's not perfect, no. But the 1965 act is specifically the part that protects voting rights of minorities. Would voting be better without that? Especially given that one party has turned voter suppression into an integral part of their strategy for winning elections? If it were left up to states, a large portion of them would deliberately not have these rules. And the nonstandardization of rules across the other states would mean that even in cases where they existed, the laws and associated court precedents would be a gigantic mess, making it a lot harder to litigate cases. For reference on situations where minority voting rights are still a problem: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ohio-hit-lawsuit-over-gop-passed-voting-restrictions http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ohio-hit-lawsuit-over-gop-passed-... http://www.southeastgeorgiatoday.com/index.php/8-newsbreaks/35373-georgia-settles-voting-rights-lawsuit http://www.southeastgeorgiatoday.com/index.php/8-newsbreaks/... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/federal-appeals-court-strikes-controversial-north-carolina-voting-restrictions http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/federal-appeals-... http://www.theoaklandpress.com/general-news/20170111/lawsuit-detroit-suburb-denies-blacks-equal-voting-rights http://www.theoaklandpress.com/general-news/20170111/lawsuit... http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Appeals-court-upholds-judge-s-order-in-Pasadena-10907579.php http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/a... https://www.justice.gov/crt/cases-raising-claims-under-section-2-voting-rights-act-0 https://www.justice.gov/crt/cases-raising-claims-under-secti... etc.
- dexterdog 10y agoWell, putting 'affordable' in the name was its own version of propaganda.
- kingkawn 10y agoif you define propaganda as any effort to be convincing of anything then there's nothing left that isn't it anywhere, in which case the point was not to point out propaganda but to be right about everything
- ethbro 10y agoA lot of the failures of the law I put on Republicans. They knew it was going to pass, and yet they decided to ignore it for political reasons instead of working to fix some of its broken provisions. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00396#position https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_...
- bigtex 10y agoInteresting, so the law passed with zero Republican support but yet it is their fault for all of it's problems. Maybe the Democrats should be responsible for its failure?
- QuantumAphid 10y agoZero Republican support was baked-into it from the start. Repubs that did work with the democrats, and had their feedback incorporated (161 amendments) were threatened by House leadership (see: Chuck Grassley, Gang of Six). Obamacare is largely a success. Even the current CBO report shows that it has been working well. The program is only a few years old and needs some tweaking. Its main shortcoming is that it is slightly underfunded, and needs more enrollments from younger people. Also pretty shitty that 19 states would rather see their constituents suffer than to allow the federal government to expand Medicaid for them.
- 467568985476 10y ago
- grondilu 10y agoIsn't it a common practice to find nicknames for pieces of legislation? In that case, the Republican found one that stuck. The name "Obamacare" is nothing more than a portmanteau of "Obama" and "Health care", and as such it does not entail any political message per se, except that it's supposed to name an health care legislation in which Barack Obama was particularly involved. So, calling the use of this word "propaganda" seems highly incorrect. In fact, IIRC Barack Obama himself appropriated the name and said something like "I don't mind this to be called Obamacare, because I do care" (I'm paraphrasing).
- haswell 10y agoFor a large portion of the population, "Obama" is/was an inherently negative word. While it's true that the word simply indicates it was "his" plan, this is also intrinsically linked to extreme negativity and calling it Obamacare was extremely loaded. I can understand why this could be seen as propaganda. In response to your edit, I think this was a good way for Obama to take things in stride. But it doesn't change the inherent negativity for most.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- soneil 10y agoIt seems to be increasingly common to make the name of the legislation propaganda in itself. Naming the ACA 'affordable' would be an immediate example - a less contentious example would be "USA PATRIOT" (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act), as attacking PATRIOT immediately sounds politically worse than attacking state surveillance. Countering 'Affordable' with 'Obamacare' was a very successful propaganda win. Affordable sounds good, Obama sounds bad (to the intended audiences). That you can realistically ask people to take sides between the two (whether they prefer Obamacare or ACA) illustrates this perfectly (if Kimmel is a source, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6m7pWEMPlA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6m7pWEMPlA)
- botexpert 10y ago+ a huge percentage of people who think global warming is caused by humans and happening do nothing about it. the sales of cars are rising, the gas is being bought, the whole USA is under a 24/7 air conditioning, the gluttony is at its highest, the production and consumption of chicken and beef too, etc. From my perspective the difference between believers and non-believers is invisible.
- zzalpha 10y agoEh, changes like that don't happen at the individual level. Crime is at historic lows not because people decided to be less violent, but because of socioeconomic changes (and possibly the elimination of common sources of lead). Rivers stopped catching on fire in the US not because individuals decided to stop dumping chemicals into rivers, but because Americans took collective action in the form or regulations and fines to force better behaviour through financial consequences. The reality is pollution is an externality, and a very invisible one. Individuals are unlikely to make decisions that impact it because they don't directly bear the costs. And the reality is our societies aren't structured to make it easy to avoid polluting. Try living in an average American city without burning gas in a car, or oil/gas to heat or cool your home. It's an impossible ask for a typical middle class family, let alone someone lower on the socioeconomic scale. There's a reason things like carbon taxes and green subsidies are very attractive: it allows you to incentivize the behaviour we want to see by baking in the cost of those externalities into people's decisions.
- botexpert 10y agoYes, but doing business as usual will never bring collective action. Why would politicians tax energy usage if no people demand it? Why would politicians tax meat if no one demands it? This kind of appeal to futility only brings change when consequences happen.
- zzalpha 10y agoA lot of people are demanding it. Heck, some countries like Canada are actively passing things like carbon taxes. But when a large portion of the populace (and thus elected officials) doesn't believe there's a problem in the first place, it's a little tough to take collective action, which brings us back to the original point.
- poopsintub 10y agoI don't think you can blame anyone for this. Someone coined the term, and it seemed like everyone ran with it. People probably don't know it's the same thing because premiums keep rising. It has never been affordable.
- ouid 10y agoSome more propaganda victories by the right: "Inheritance tax is double dipping"- if you inherit a fortune in unrealized capital gains, the government essentially forgives that tax debt. I.e. if you were to cash out at that value, you wouldn't have to pay anything. "Americans are obscenely litigious"- This, as far as I know, started with the McDonald's case. Since then there has been a steady stream of headlines of people successfully suing businesses for things that were seemingly ridiculous. None of these cases were as ridiculous as they were made out to be. "The income tax credit on mortgage interest makes it cheaper for americans to buy a home"- The average monthly cost for a home is whatever the market says the monthly cost for a home is. And in fact, because the tax brackets are stratified, and the mortgage interest deduction is mutually exclusive with the standard deduction, more expensive homes rose in value more, as a result of the legislation, than less expensive homes.
- m52go 10y ago"Americans Think Cloud Computing Comes From Actual Clouds" http://www.webpronews.com/americans-think-cloud-computing-comes-from-actual-clouds-2012-08/ http://www.webpronews.com/americans-think-cloud-computing-co... Personally I think people are most ignorant when they're most comfortable. The number of people reading & talking about politics right now, at least in my circles, is higher than it's ever been. Much of what they're saying it led by FUD and isn't balanced at all, in my opinion, but that's a different issue.
- kylehotchkiss 10y agoThis entire article is the best argument I've seen yet for not using buzzwords for marketing
- stephancoral 10y ago>To get the embarrassing statistics out of the way first, the survey found that 51 percent of respondents believe that stormy weather can interfere with cloud computing. To be fair, power outages at data centers caused by storms and hurricanes are a serious problem. Being on-call in NYC during Sandy was not fun.
- DrScump 10y agoI can't find another source that says literally that of this poll[0], but Slate's article[1] resonates similarly: "Wakefield developed a questionnaire that delved into Americans’ misunderstandings of “the cloud.” By releasing a less B2B-focused survey, Citrix was able to, for the first time, connect the brand to “the cloud” for the wider consumer population – not just in B2B circles. Stats such as, “51% think inclement weather interferes with cloud computing,” [0] http://www.wakefieldresearch.com/works/citrix http://www.wakefieldresearch.com/works/citrix [1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/08/30/cloud_computing_a_survey_says_most_americans_think_it_has_to_do_with_literal_clouds.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/08/30/cloud_computi...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- w1ntermute 10y agoThis is such a pernicious problem because (1) people are very susceptible to wishful thinking and (2) there's no mechanism for self-correction when the misinformed don't know (or refuse to accept) that they're misinformed.
- skummetmaelk 10y agoDemocracy is a farce.
- banku_brougham 10y agoI wish I could down vote, instead I am registering my disapproval here.
- gjkood 10y agoTo paraphrase Winston Churchill, it's less of a farce than all other forms of government.
- dang 10y agoPlease stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN.
- wolfram74 10y agoAs was mentioned in Blue Mars "If you can’t afford housing then the right to vote is a bad joke." People are too frightened and insecure to participate meaningfully.
- Shaxberd 10y ago"Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses." -H. L. Mencken
- nickthemagicman 10y agoLol. Are the majority of people as dumb as they seem? I'm continually amazed at how well propaganda works on people and how easily they'll go against their best interests. Voting seems to be just a battle of propoganda to sway dumb people instead of two sides presenting scientific evidence to back their views and people actively working to make things better with rigorous scientific method. Maybe I'm naieve but it seems humanity will keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again until we run government scientifically with peer review.
- DrScump 10y agoAre the majority of people as dumb as they seem? In fact, almost half of them have below-average intelligence. But seriously, media-managed perceptions have a lot of effect. Most Americans have low approval ratings of Congress in general but much higher approval of their individual Congressmember.
- nickthemagicman 10y agoYeah but isn't insane how politics and government is just a media managed propoganda battle? These people running our entire society have absolutely no scientific methodology for determining their policies. It's all just propaganda and some politician on a commercial making a bunch of promises. It's so insane to me. I wouldn't go to a doctor who had really good commercials, I would want to see their success results,and I want to know and what is going on with my treatment at all times, and see how successful the treatment is, etc.etc.. Yet this is how we elect people to run the entire country??
- illuminati1911 10y agoAnother example of why democracy does not work at least in its current form. So is democracy really something that countries and people should be pursuing? Example: US presidential election. I'm not the worst enemy of Trump and I'm not his supporter either, but I still can easily understand why many people voted for him. He was direct and gave simple answers to (seemingly) simple problems and what's more, he actually has kept his promises so far. I can't say I remember any politician ever doing what they promised during the elections, but Trump has done it. Still person like Trump with his ideas is not fit to be the president of United States or any other country either really for the obvious reasons that have been discussed here as well many times. However, as long as we live in democracy things like Trump can and will keep on happening. I hate to sound arrogant, but if you give equal rights to vote for all people despite their level of education, understanding of the world, politics, environment and many other things there will be more Trumps and other kinds of problems. I'm not trying to support dictatorship, but instead maybe there could be some kind of limited/modified democracy or something which is somewhere in the middle of dictatorship and democracy. Considering the current events, I don't think there will be much choice soon.
- jeffdavis 10y agoThat's what the Constitution is for in a democratic republic, like the U.S. It limits the damage a single populist can cause to our lasting institutions. Unfortunately, it's eroded over time. When we want big government policies, we don't care if it's truly regulating commerce "among the several states", and we don't bother to amend the Constitution to add the powers we feel are appropriate. Out of all the people that want gun control, none advocate for an amendment to revoke the second. They all seem to conveniently believe that it's constitutional. I understand why some people feel that way, but surely a reading of the second amendment would lead some of them to want to revoke it, but it doesn't, because nobody cares what the second amendment or any other part of the Constitution says.
- maxerickson 10y agoNone? How about a former Justice of the Supreme Court? https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-five-extra-words-that-can-fix-the-second-amendment/2014/04/11/f8a19578-b8fa-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-five-extra-words...