Happy birthday, ACA! You've survived the courts, the House of Representatives, and a crazy-bad rollout of the federal exchange. But Republicans have more in store for you.
March 23, 2014

Everyone sing Happy Birthday to ObamaCare! Four years ago today, I melted into tears watching President Obama sign the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law.

For me it had been like the end to a pregnancy from hell. Between fighting right wing lies and left wing discontent, I was exhausted from the constant barrage of misinformation and manufactured outrage on the right, and the painful disappointment on the left over the public option.

On that day, all I knew was that my children would now have a future where they didn't have to face a decision between paying for doctors or paying the rent. For one of those kids, the ACA meant the difference between a full, happy, healthy life and a life of constant struggle to maintain his health at all.

Here we are, four years later. Our billionaire-fueled right wing has not abandoned their pathological obsession with telling us all to "Die, and die quickly." Indeed, Alan Grayson was raked over the coals for what was considered an outrageous insult to his esteemed colleagues, but he was proven to be correct over and over again.

In honor of the ACA's fourth anniversary, ThinkProgress published a timeline with videos and graphics of conservatives' all-out obsession with the Affordable Care Act. Even for those of us who have hunkered down in the trenches, it's still amazing to see the lengths to which they will go to deny their fellow citizens health care, compiled all in one place.

Who can forget whacko Rep. Steve King talking about how he was going to try and get those very same 218 representatives who had just voted for the ACA to sign off on a discharge petition to repeal it? That was the very same day it was signed into law. King and his pal Wasilla Woman Sarah Palin were two primary pot-stirrers, ignoring the threats of violence that had been lobbed through windows of Democratic offices after they voted for the law's passage.

Or the ALEC effort, led by Ron Paul, to nullify it on a state-by-state basis?

nullificationmap500

It's a real walk down memory lane, and probably the longest post ThinkProgress has ever done on the ACA. So much crazy, so little time. If they keep up like this, they'll have to put a new entry in the DSM V for Obamacare Derangement Syndrome (ODS).

I thought it might be fun to look at our own collection of right-wing crazy talk about the ACA, since it's a birthday and all. We have nearly 1200 clips on the site about Obamacare right now, beginning in July, 2009 when the House rolled out their version of the bill.

Right near the top, there's 'Bloody Bill' Kristol, strategizing on how to abort the bill before birth. His advice? "Go for the kill." Later on, Kristol flogs viewers again, this time with tales of death at the hands of government healthcare overseers.

Next up on the hit parade is perennially-wrong Dick Morris, warning that health care reforms "will kill our parents."

Spinning the dial forward, there's BillO whining about coverage of colonoscopies and mammograms leading to "a nanny state."

A momentary break in the Gloom and Doom parade as Nate Silver correctly predicts that health care reform is not dead. That was when it was still in the fetal stages, in 2009.

Ray Stevens writes a tea party anthem that includes an ode to killing Grandma and death panels.

There are so many more. There's the March of the Firing Doctors, who decide to can any employee of theirs who dared to vote for Obama, and 'Crazy-Eyes' Michele Bachmann proclaiming the end of the country as we know it time after time after time after time. Except for the time she decided people might live through the ACA, but would become a 'nation of slaves.' Bachmann has been a constant source of fearful hyperbole, spreading the rumor that the IRS will kill you if the death panels don't,

Then there were the insurance companies lying to their customers about what the future holds, Tobacco Goddess and Chief Pimpstress Betsy McGaughey holding forth on the evils of giving the little folks access to affordable health care, the pronouncement of Obama's health care summit in early 2010 as a "death panel for Democrats," and Fox News' Very Serious Concerns about the ACA's death panels and death books.

Meanwhile, out in the heartland, Republican governor Mitch Daniels made the case for rationing health care so they could cover their bets on both sides of the spectrum.

Over at Fox News, Steve Doocy tried to sell the idea that treating people like dogs was better than the ACA, while Eric Bolling earnestly informed viewers that 'Obamacare could literally kill you.'

In FoxLand, no one was exempt. Laura Ingraham smacked Eric Cantor around for not repealing it fast enough or enough times, while Bloody Bill Kristol advised Mitt Romney to run for President by ignoring his own health care law and promising to repeal this one. Which he did. Paul Ryan lied through both sides of his mouth about Medicare, and Paul Broun declared that America's destruction was imminent.

That's just a high-level overview of some of the crazy. Our library is chock-full of crazy Republicans saying crazy things about the Affordable Care Act. And they think they're going to win in November of this year by doing the same thing?

With the wealth of clips available, I think Democrats should make an ad parody of the Direct TV ads. You know the ones I'm talking about. Where they start with some innocuous thing and go down a path where one thing leads to the next to the next, and those next things are increasingly bizarre and funny? That's the ad Dems need. Something like "When you run as a Republican, you need the tea party. When you need the tea party you need to repeal Obamacare. When you need to repeal Obamacare you need to say so. When you need to say so, you say stupid things like "death panels will kill Grandma." Don't say stupid things like "death panels will kill Grandma." Vote Democrat instead. I think they could do it well, with lots of clips and crazy.

As for me, I will pay my April 1st premium early in honor of my gratitude for the benefit of having access to good health insurance and access to health care. Thanks, Obama!

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