Everyone expects some political lying in TV ads during election season especially with all the dark money pouring into campaigns. A recent ad that supports Senator Rob Portman is the worse kind of political lying because it is aimed at the low information voter who doesn’t keep up on the issues. A small business owner is complaining about insurance costs and then Portman chimes in that “Obamacare” has cost jobs and is vague as usual that it needs to be replaced. The fact is the business owner’s insurance costs went up because they couldn’t offer the cheap, crappy coverage no longer permitted under the Affordable Care Act and there is no evidence that the ACA has cost any jobs.
Here is a brief transcript of the ad:
Claudia: Since Obamacare, healthcare is our biggest single expense. We had to increase our deductible. We could no longer afford the plan that we had.
Portman: Obamacare is costing our economy jobs, no question about it. It’s important to repeal Obamacare then replace it with something that has more choice and lower cost for working families in Ohio.
One Nation is a conservative political action committee connected to Karl Rove and this “Claudia” ad gets some things seriously wrong.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) doesn’t set the premiums charged by insurance companies. The reason Claudia’s healthcare cost increased was because they had to drop the shitty plan they offered the workers before the ACA.
Even though a candidate isn’t suppose to coordinate with a dark money PAC, this ad used a cut and paste job to add Rob Portman complaining about Obamacare costing jobs. Claudia didn’t mention anything about higher insurance costing jobs at her business.
Has the ACA cost the economy jobs? The short answer is no:
Barring an asteroid or the biggest economic surprise in recent history, Friday’s jobs report will be the 60th straight month that America’s private sector has gained jobs.
That’s a new record — but another milestone this month arguably looms larger.
March [2015] marks five years since the Affordable Care Act was passed … amid Republican cries that the ACA was a job-killer.
To put that more plainly: The private sector hasn’t lost jobs since Obamacare was officially created.
Not only does this ad give the impression that it is an ad direct from the candidate but it also uses two false arguments against the ACA in hopes that Portman’s supporters will have a short memory.
These false ads are the kind of ads I wish we could get rid of completely.
Here’s the ad if you want to see the full version:
