The word "Obamacare."

It seems to me like one of the silliest developments in politics. Yes, attaching a person's name to a concept can help discredit both, but at this point it's just getting grating.

Is this what it felt like when "Hooverville" cropped up? At least that was actually blaming somebody for something, not a Catch-22 of associating one thing that's BAAAAAAAAD with something else that's also BAAAAAAAAAAAAD.

Can't we dispense with [Proponent's name here]care?

Why can't you attack the actual issue at hand? Instead of the associations with the person who was responsible, especially when their hand in it might've been pretty small in terms of the actual set up.

Should we call the new Vermont Single Payer thing Shumlincare?

What about the breakdown of Attleecare?

Shouldn't we be worried about the depletion of Rooseveltcare?

Will Romneycare keep Mitt from running for office?

If they don't have a name to pin things on, then they don't have a villain to use as propaganda.

But hey, I use it to tell if I should ignore somebody, it's like a shibboleth.

For me it's turning into a shoggoth.

It seems to me that its more of a shorthand. Its easier to call the health insurance legislation known as "Obamacare" Obamacare rather that "the recent healthcare legislation signed under Obama" or its actual name, the "Affordable Care And Patient Protection Act."

I'm highly against Obamacare because I think it doesn't go far enough, and I am a supporter of Obama, but I still call it Obamacare because its simpler.

But I can see how people would hold it against me, since the implication is that Obamacare is an awful piece of legislation authored by Obama, which is why I call it, when talking about the particulars of the bill, the ACAPPA.

ACAPPA sounds infinitely better. AH-KAH-PAH. Three syllables. Obamacare is four.

I blame Fox.

but its easier to remember Obamacare since its a combination of two words I already know. I'd have to put some effort into thinking about the ACAPPA thing...

question: Would it be pertinent to also discuss the "-gate" suffix, or would that be for another topic?

We'll call it Gate-gate.

I guess we seem to collectively want easy soundbytes and as soon as you hear X-gate, you know that it's a snafu about X, news at eleven.

And you hear "-care" you know its about healthcare. Simple enough.

Basically, yes.

So, annoying as it is, it does serve as a form of shorthand.

Maybe it just annoys me because it isn't retroactive.

Although Teapot Domegate sounds pretty amusing.

Credit Mobilier was the Teapot Domegate of Ulysses S. Grant's presidency.

Huh.

Could call it Healthcare reform, but no Republican would be caught dead using the word "reform", implying that it might not be TEH EVULZ.

I agree. Canada has a much better system. But I suppose it's a good step, at least.

Canada has easily the best healthcare in the world.

I wouldn't go that far. We could have, but we've been fucking it up lately.

Regarding the suffix -gate

Off topic: thank you for that. I love David Mitchell. :D

On topic: So is the phrase obamacare harmful to both the ACAPPA and obama himself? or is it more an accepted substitute for the ACAPPA?

It's used as a pejorative. It's harmful to productive discussion.

It certainly raises my heckles and the associated prejudices.

At least it's better than "The Job-Killing Healthcare Act". Which is the other official Republican name for it.

Have they actually said that?

Its especially funny when you realize its the same bill Republicans came up with as a response to Clinton's healthcare ideas.

I believe Boehner used "Job-Destroying" in his twitter feed. Oh wait, it was "job-crushing" .

Big difference, I know!

And of course...they did!

edited 27th May '11 7:14:08 PM by blueharp

Businesses under x people (forget the number) are exempt from the regulations.

Can you honestly say no one is going to get layed off so the company is under that number?

That has nothing to do with the situation at hand.

We are talking about the word.

Not the underlying issues.

Which is what the word aims to do, actually.