One of the more entertaining aspects of the passage of the American Health Care Act, the first step in the Repeal and Replace of Obamacare, has been the hysterical reaction of many on the left on social media. According to far too many overwrought people, thousands, perhaps millions will die as a result. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn was pretty sure that mass death would follow, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
“House GOP, I hope you slept well last night. Because after this vote, you will have the death of thousands of your conscience forever.”
Several hours later, Murphy upped the ante.
“What just happened - the deliberate decision to hurt millions to fund a millionaire tax cut - isn't America. We will prove it next November.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren also claimed that people would die. The Daily Kos pegged the body count to be in the millions.
To gain some perspective, the Vietnam War from beginning cost the lives of just over 58,000 Americans. One can only wonder how a change in federal healthcare policy could potentially kill more Americans than a major war.
If the tweet storm is the result of a deliberate strategy, then it is a flawed one. Let us suppose the AHCA passes in some form and thousands do not die, then Republicans can claim that the law was a success. Democrats will be seen as children who cried wolf, with no credibility.
In any case, Democratic claims that Republicans want to kill people is a little bit precious. Plenty of anecdotal evidence exists of people dying as a result of Obamacare, mainly patients who were being treated for deadly diseases such as cancer who lost their old health insurance and could not get the new variety under the inflated premiums and deductibles.
The numbers have not been calculated, but one would not be surprised if it were not at least in the hundreds. In any case, supporters of the affordable care act tended to shrug and talk about how one cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Democrats were guilty of the very thing that they accuse Republicans of wanting to do.
Democrats are gambling that they can scare enough people to vote against Republican office holders in 2018 and thus through Congress back to their control. They also want to scare those same office holders into not voting for the final version of repeal and replace. They suppose that people will forget what an excrement sandwich Obamacare turned out to be. The strategy may well backfire.
