Okay, we cats have been pretty patient with all the nonsense that's swirled around the Affordable Care Act for the last few months. But we really have to draw the line over yesterday's report from the Congressional Budget Office. Aided and abetted by some stupid headlines and the right-wing echo chamber, the world had kittens over it for absolutely no reason.
Two million jobs! Obamacare is killing two million jobs! Man the barricades!
Sorry, everybody, but what the CBO was really saying was this: "The ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive." (Emphasis ours.)
Got that? It means that Americans will no longer have to take crummy low-wage jobs — or other jobs they're not interested in — just to get health insurance. Because they'll have coverage through Obamacare.
Sheesh. What a freaking circus. We cats realize that Medicare had a difficult rollout, too — but it least it didn't have to take place in a climate of never-ending hysteria created by teabaggers and fueled by social media. (And lest you assume we're letting the Administration off scot-free, think again: Lies like this wouldn't gain traction nearly as easily if Team Obama had kept selling the ACA the moment it was enacted.)
As for the Republicans, they'd best give it up. Obamacare is here to stay, no matter how much the GOP pines for the time when 45 millions Americans were uninsured, dying in emergency rooms, and costing the country a fortune. Those were the good old days? We cats HISS.
UPDATE: Finally, the pathetic press has caught up with the real story. The Washington Post has just realized that Americans no longer have to work in dead-end positions because they need the health coverage. "It was wonderful," says Polly Lower, 56, of quitting a job she hated. "It was very freeing." We cats PURR.
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