With Obamacare emerging intact last week after the Supreme Court ruled in its favor, John Oliver found it appropriate to revisit the past five years of apocalyptic predictions from conservatives declaring “the end of Obamacare” was near.
From Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to Fox host Andrea Tantaros, the montage on Sunday covered the doomsday hype from conservatives, from the law’s inception all the way to last week.
“It could happen next week in the United States Congress,” King said in 2011. Three years later, CNBC was drawing up graphics of the word “Obamacare” splayed on a hospital bed getting jolted by a defibrillator.
And, of course, no reel of botched predictions would be complete without an appearance from Dick Morris.
Watch the clip, courtesy of HBO:
It’s uncanny the similarity of language between republicans and Faux news hosts. Almost makes you think they develop their message together…
Seeing this compilation of nonsense truly reinforces how lame our media and politicians are. Also, look how much more grey POTUS has vs when ACA was signed. Poor man.
Will there ever be a Beginning of the Republican Replace Plan for Obamacare?
The doomsaying hasn’t been limited to conservatives. How many articles did TPM publish on what was going to happen when the Court killed Obamacare? Dozens. Yet, the odds were always strongly on the side of the Court not going there, as I and others pointed out many times. Perhaps we ought to spend more time on discussing things that actually happen, rather than what “might” happen.
For example, all hell is breaking loose in Greece and not a word here. Closer to home, Puerto Rico is defaulting and you wouldn’t learn that here. But something that “might” happen is worth pages.
The only POTUS who wasn’t significantly more grey by the end of two terms was St. Ronnie. I think that was one of his confirmed miracles.