I know you are shocked -- SHOCKED -- to discover that all the Obamacare noise over the last month is the product of a very carefully orchestrated public relations campaign.

New York Times:

The document, the product of a series of closed-door strategy sessions that began in mid-October, is part of an increasingly organized Republican attack on the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature legislative initiative. Republican strategists say that over the next several months, they intend to keep Democrats on their heels through a multilayered, sequenced assault.

[...]

At a congressional field hearing set for Friday in Gastonia, N.C., the line of attack will shift to rate shocks expected to jolt the insurance markets in the next two years. Coming soon: a push to highlight people losing access to their longtime physicians and changes in Medicare Advantage programs for older people.

The effort has its roots in a strategy developed last spring, when House Republican leaders — plagued by party divisions that were thwarting legislative accomplishments — refocused the House’s committees on oversight rather than on the development of new policies.

And so the group known as Groundswell was born to pull all the players and factions into one room in order to carry their message into social, mainstream, broadcast, print and online media.

Chaos and dysfunction. By their fruit, you shall know them.