This is a good example of the process of how the Republican base has come to like Trump so much. Their elites either don’t know what they are talking about or are lying to them, repeatedly.
@reihan @ptbrennan11 @KipPiper or more to the point, he’s included autos in the denominator but not the numerator. Assumes 0 autos under 35.
— Charles Gaba (@charles_gaba) December 23, 2015
Scott Gottlieb is supposed to be a medium size deal in the conservative health wonk community. He was one of the ten “wonks” who came up with the most recent Republican repeal and maybe replace plan. He has the sinecures and the titles to be a valued source of trusted information to conservatives. However, either he does not understand what he is talking about or he is actively misleading his audience. He started this string with the following tweet:
CMS says 2.1M or 26% of current #Obamacare enrollees under age 35 vs 33% and 29% during same time in 2015 and 2014 -> deteriorating risk mix
— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) December 22, 2015
That is a very strong claim that is diametrically opposed to reality. The risk pool is getting younger. We can’t say for sure that a younger risk pool is a healthier/cheaper risk pool, but it is extraordinarily likely that this is the case.
Local conservative opinion leaders will get a false signal from Gottlieb that the Exchanges are death spiraling. They have been getting those signals from conservative “wonks” and “policy” opinion leaders for five years now. Sooner or later dreaded Obamacare will collapse under its own weight and 10 million people (as you know those Chicago crooks are cooking the books, so it can’t be 17 million people) will have the freedom to choose health savings accounts or freedom.
And next year, when Obamacare does not collapse in on itself like a neutron star of fail, the same opinion leaders and expert validaters will trot out the same story.
The Republican base has been promised a lot and their party can’t deliver on those goals. The elites don’t have legitimacy because their bullshit has been marked to market so new entries with new, creatively destructive forms of bullshit have a niches that they can fill and a willing mass audience that wants to believe that this time the new guy can deliver on their promises while ignoring the elites who have no credibility.
Satby
Too bad the bullshit doesn’t have a death spiral.
Richard Mayhew
@Satby: the institutional bullshit is death spiraling with Trump and cruz
Satby
@Richard Mayhew: I hope so… but it seems to have more lives than a cat.
Baud
The goal is to keep it up until the GOP wins the presidency and they can “replace” Obamacare. Then the story will be that they saved the U.S. just in time.
Baud
This may be misplaced nostalgia, I’d like to believe there used to be a time when one would lose credibility in serious policy circles if one lied all the time, regardless of one’s politics.
Frankensteinbeck
What elected Republicans promised and haven’t delivered is to put minorities, especially the black man in the white house, in their place.
Trump is the proof. He got into the lead saying Mexicans are rapists and murderers. He gets a bump every time he spews some horrible piece of bigotry. His audience doesn’t give a damn about his positions, and cheer anything, orthodox or not, consistent or note, because he’s already told them what they want to hear.
That doesn’t change that it’s really useful for you to tell us all this stuff, Mayhew!
debbie
@Baud:
The bits of U.S. history I’ve read about (beyond schoolbooks) would say there never has been such a time.
boatboy_srq
@Baud: When your electoral base expects every single thing coming from your lips to be untrue, there are fewer disadvantages in spreading whoppers and b#llsh!t than otherwise. That’s part of what’s gotten Voldemort and the Matt of Bevinstan in trouble: they actually told their voters what they intended to do, and the silly clods didn’t believe them because no pol tells the truth ever.
Frankensteinbeck
@boatboy_srq:
They wanted to be lied to. There’s a Hell of a lot of wishful thinking in Kentucky that if you fuck over everybody, somehow the Good and Worthy (white conservative Republicans) will be untouched.
boatboy_srq
@Frankensteinbeck: True; but in those cases they wanted all the other stuff their candidates promised to be lies as well.
Frankensteinbeck
@boatboy_srq:
Not in Bevin’s case. They just wanted to believe that they would be immune. It’s like that lady on expanded Medicaid with the horrible medical problems said. She voted for Bevin believing he would kill it, but it didn’t matter, because she believes that all her financial problems will be solved if you take away the lazy’s ability to mooch. Good jobs will flourish, and people like her who deserve it will be fine.
EDIT – Florida I know jack about. Maybe they really thought he was lying. But I lived 20 years in Kentucky, and I know how they work.
ThresherK
Aren’t these the jackholes who keep saying “
RuinReform Social Security” and forgetting about widows’, orphans’ and disabilities benefits?Cos that “nobody under 35” sounds like the same play from a different sport.
Ken
This is why it’s good to have pharamcists. They’re a second line to catch mistakes by innumerate MDs.
boatboy_srq
@Frankensteinbeck: Voldemort took a lot of FL by surprise. How he got reelected after p!ssing off absolutely everyone
is pure TABMITWHI have no idea.Joey Maloney
Wanks, wonks, it’s just one vowel…what’s the difference?
Richard Mayhew
@Ken: No Pharmacists are the 3rd line, Nurses are the 2nd line
Speaking as a son of a nurse!
MattF
I suspect the number of conservative voters who pay attention to the details of the health care system as described by the ‘conservative wonks’ is zero. The conservative healthcare wonks’ role in the debate falls into the long and sad history of cognitive dissonance on the right– conservative healthcare wonks are the high IQ people on the right who provide the layer of ice you can skate on to get over the rough patches. And, folks, that’s the whole story.
khead
@Baud:
“90 million people will lose their health insurance”. I’ve been poking fun at the person who said this on my FB feed for a few years now. I can’t do it anymore because he unfriended me. Why? Because I’m an asshole. For pointing out how wrong he is and not respecting his opinion(s).
Gin & Tonic
@Ken: True. My wife is one. If I had $1 for every time she’s made a phone call to say “doctor, didn’t you really mean…?” I’d be retired already.
OzarkHillbilly
@boatboy_srq: Hanging chads.
MomSense
Maybe we should do an end of the year thread with our “favorite” Republican lies or bullshit predictions. Or we could just call it the stupid shit Republicans said this year.
ETA add media to our list?
WereBear
They have to build a fantasy world, only they are not as good at it as Disney is. Stoopey reality! Always messing up a good lie!
Mike in NC
Should we wish Scott Gottlieb a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or merely tell him to go fuck himself?
FlipYrWhig
@Frankensteinbeck: This is the thought process of nearly all Republicans: there’s plenty of money to go around for everyone who needs and deserves it if only The Government would stop wasting it on welfare, fraud, and other boondoggles.
MomSense
@Mike in NC:
How ’bout go fuck himself with a fully decorated Christmas tree.
catclub
delegitamization;
how about deligitimization? even if it is pronounced with an ‘a’ sound there in the middle.
catclub
@FlipYrWhig: I disagree. They are motivated by fear that there will not be enough (of whatever is being discussed). never mind that there is enough for all if it is distributed better.
gene108
@Richard Mayhew:
Institutional bullshit never won the Republicans any elections.
Willie Horton won elections.
Rigging the Florida vote, in 2000, won elections.
No one ran on the pronouncements of the AEI or Heritage Foundation.
As long as race bating and voter suppression can still get votes, there’s no death spiral for Republicans.
WereBear
@gene108: However, the fake institutes and think tanks do serve as cover for the MSM.
kped
What’s striking is, he retweets random crap with people saying “ouch, this isn’t good”, but refuses to engage Gaba and anyone else pointing out he is misleading/wrong. If it were an honest mistake, he’d correct. If he thought he was right, he’d engage. Instead, he ignores. And don’t for a second think he doesn’t see the corrections.
So, to conclude, he is a dishonest hack.
Richard Mayhew
@kped: So the incentive structure is for him to be a dishonest hack but the dishonest hackery of elite DC opinion makers and movers in the Conservative Movement occassionally comes to blow with reality (Iraq, Katrina, Wall Street, now Obamacare) ; it is a reinforcing cycle that is bad for the conservative institution even as it is good for the individuals who are in on the grift.
boatboy_srq
@Richard Mayhew:
And we’ve gone from conservatism as a movement to Conservatism as a means for the lip-service-giving grifters to make a bundle off the rubes – just like that.
Steeplejack
@catclub:
How about delegitimization? Even if that second e is a little fuzzy.
catclub
@Steeplejack: I tried that, and the spell checker liked my version.
But now I am unsure. and your way is starting to look right.
boatboy_srq
@catclub: Can we all agree to look this up at Webster’s before we resort to delitigation (an interesting concept, true, but still…)?
Amir Khalid
@catclub:
@Steeplejack:
The correct spelling, obviously, is delegitimisation, with an s instead of a zed.
boatboy_srq
@Amir Khalid: WIN.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Ha! Somehow I knew you would weigh in.
@catclub:
Start with legitimate and work from there.
ETA: This reminds me of my mock-pretentious friend who used to put on a British accent and say that her favorite rock group was Zed Zed Top.
Citizen Alan
@boatboy_srq: The FL Dems’ poor decision to run another Republican against him surely played a part.
Zinsky
Splunge!
Matt McIrvin
It’s not just Republicans: almost every conversation about this on a progressive website ends up dominated by people condemning the ACA for not being single payer. And there are usually one or two who insist they got screwed by it, and for all I know they did (the last one I encountered was apparently hit by the family glitch).
Another_Bob
Avik Roy, Betsy McCaughey, Megan McArdle, et al, are paid liars. I don’t know if they’re handed money after every lie the way a trained seal gets a tasty mackerel from a bucket, but it’s kind of the same thing. Even when they make “mistakes,” those mistakes always miraculously work to support their ideology, which probably means that they’re not really mistakes. They’re frauds and liars and I despise them.
LisGatosCA
@Baud:
That made me laugh out loud.
rikyrah
they are all liars, Mayhew.
there are no sincere Republicans in healthcare.
OF COURSE, THEY ARE LYING ABOUT OBAMACARE.
mclaren
CLOUD WILLIAM: “Freedom? Freedom?”
KIRK: “Spock.”
SPOCK: “Yes, I heard, Captain.”
CLOUD WILLIAM: “That is a worship word. Yang worship. You will not speak it!”
— Star Trek (the original series), “The Omega Glory,” 1968
ezra abrams
even worse, as has been stated repeatedly, it isn’t only the age mix, it is the health mix: healthy 55 yros contribute a lot of money but don’t use healthcare, they make as big if not bigger difference
explained here
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/paul-krugman-and-the-young-invincibles