One day after Bill O’Reilly made a fool out of Sen. Ted Cruz, O'Reilly seemed determined to make up for lost GOP-unity time last night. He did so by declaring the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, a dangerous failure and thereby suggesting that Cruz and the Tea Party were justified in shutting down the government to stop it.
O’Reilly’s meme played out over several segments but I’m going to discuss and post two of them. In the first one, O’Reilly described the Democratic position on Obamacare as, “‘We’re gonna go with it. We don’t care if it works or not.’ Obviously, it isn’t working and we’ll prove that in the next segment.” Later, O’Reilly “asked” reporters James Rosen and Carl Cameron, “Are the Democrats just saying, ‘No, we’re not gonna give in on anything’ and that’s it? Is that what it’s about?”
Unfortunately for O’Reilly, Rosen and Cameron made some real stabs at independence, fairness and balance. Cameron said that while both sides had “legitimate complaints” and “legitimate ideas,” he didn’t sound so keen about the tactic of shutting down the government. “There are constitutional ways to readdress Obamacare,” Cameron said pointedly. “You can pass a law, override a veto, win an election, take over.”
O’Reilly was not interested in that. He interrupted to make it sound as though Obamacare is just so awful that Republicans had to take whatever measures they could to solve the emergency, no matter how extreme.
But what the problem is now is that you have a law that’s been passed, and legitimately passed, and upheld by the Supreme Court, that’s falling apart. It’s falling apart.
Rosen argued that that’s “not clear” because one day after the bulk of the law took effect is too soon to judge. But O’Reilly didn’t want to hear that.
Oh, it’s clear to me, Rosen. …So it seems to me it’s incumbent on our leadership in both parties to admit it’s not working out, it’s not working out well. So let’s try to find a solution within the framework of making it better.
Rosen answered that he was neither endorsing nor condemning Obamacare but “I’m just going to traffic in facts with you for a moment here.” Noting that it’s an ambitious, wide-ranging program that restructures 1/6th of our economy, Rosen said that the glitches that have occurred since the roll out are to be expected. He added, “To say that it’s not working when the exchanges went online yesterday I think is premature.”
Uh-oh, not the meme O'Reilly was promoting. He exclaimed, “It’s not premature! …You have to tweak when there’s danger!”
So what’s this big danger that O’Reilly was suggesting justified shutting down the government to address? Well, he told us in his Talking Points Memo following this segment (the second video below): On its first day of rollout, too many people were trying to get through to Obamacare websites and phone numbers and were stuck with long waits as a result. That was the first "proof" O'Reilly offered. The rest was just as persuasive.
O'Reilly next complained that income won’t be verified “so you could apply for health insurance subsidies even if you’re making $18 million a year.” (No word on whether or not applying means receiving.) Then because “many doctors” say they won’t accept “government-mandated health guidance,” that “could” lead to a shortage of doctors and longer waits to be treated. “Hello, Canada.”
That’s it. That’s the danger that can’t wait, that justifies shutting down the government and makes the Democrats the bad guys for not treating the Tea Party terrorism tactics as legitimate.
O’Reilly has a compromise he’s been touting, which is to delay the individual mandate for a year. That’s what he really wants, as he explained in the Talking Points. Kirsten Powers did a fine job of explaining why that won’t work in a subsequent segment which you can view here.
Any close O’Reilly observer can tell he does not like the government shutdown. Whether he took this stance last night because he dislikes Republicans looking bad even more or because of pressure from Fox News higher ups is unknown. I report, you decide.
I guess when people line up to apply for a job, it must be a shitty job because of the failure to get people in and out faster.
I guess a movie must be a failure because more people are trying to get into it!
Anyone that has ever been layed off and collected unemployment benefits knows about trying repeatedly to call into the UC office every Monday…what a failure…I guess we should eliminate it all together?
You’re pathetic O’Reilly.
Of course, if the right-wing hadn’t been doing its best to stop Obamacare and causing the “mainstream” media to cover that, instead of devoting time to how the ACA should work and explaining what people should expect on Day One. The first day of ANYTHING is going to see problems, especially when people haven’t been properly informed. (Several years ago, for instance, during my state’s “sales tax holiday*,” I went to a certain “big-box” retailer to get a new computer. BUT, I didn’t realize that the store had set up a system where a customer wanting a computer needed to call the store and set up an appointment so that when they got to the store, they’d have a “personal assistant” to help them get the desired computer. I only found this out when I went to the computers and several store employees approached me wanting to know if I’d set up an appointment. I asked if it was really necessary since I pretty much knew what I was looking for. They said it wasn’t but the one that I wanted might not be in stock; of course, that was absurd since the stores either had enough of the models in stock or they didn’t since no one was going to know what computer they wanted until they checked the models available.)
*And on the subject of “sales tax holidays,” most retailers were completely overwhelmed the very first time they were set up. You had all sorts of specific requirements and limitations as to what items were eligible and what weren’t. And the retailers, especially at smaller stores, were faced with having to reset cash registers for 1-3 days so that regular taxable merchandise could now be rung up without tax being calculated. And in some states, cities were allowed to opt out so the state tax wasn’t included but the city tax was. And yet……the sales tax holidays were successful enough (in the long run) that most states have continued participating and very few people (retailers or shoppers) have the same problems they faced when the program first started.
Junior, on 60 Minutes spoke of the gifts he has been given, and tries to use them in a positive way. It appears that Bigoted, Racist Innuendo is another one of Junior’s Gifts.
Where did you acquire your talent for Bigoted Racist Innuendo Junior? Was it part of the curriculum at Chaminade High in the 60s? Weekend home schooling from Dear Old Dad? 15+ years of playing Toady to former Nixon Toady Roger Ailes?
What say you Junior?
O’Reilly took several other shots at the ACA throughout the hour, at one point particularly announcing with authority that the ACA will be repealed soon since it’s such a bad law, as part of the normal legislative process.
I believe O’Reilly’s real issue with Ted Cruz and with the harder right people within the GOP is that he disagrees with their tactics. He agrees with their goals – the dismantling of anything and everything President Obama and the Democrats accomplish. He just doesn’t like the current spectacle, because it makes the GOP look peevish and it hands control of the debate over to his opponents. And he doesn’t like that Ted Cruz clearly took this time to promote himself at the expense of other GOP members. (One wonders how they’ll deal with each other once Cruz winds up on Fox News as a fellow on-air personality. Unless O’Reilly retires first…)