However, they mostly missed the real
problem: cancellation of existing plans. This was forecast by
healthcare analysts years ago; it's not news. So then why didn't the
Tea Party warn everybody of this problem earlier?
Instead, they chose to mostly focus on
"death panels" and illegal aliens allegedly getting
insurance. (Remember Rep. Joe Wilson's "You Lie!") Sure,
the cancellation issue was mentioned from time to time, but it was
treated as a second class citizen to the likes of death panels and
illegal alien insurance.
The likely reason is because
cancellations are more difficult to explain to voters. At the time, they were a
future event that involved statistical estimations of insurance
company behavior, and not directly part of the bill. While few would
likely dispute the forecasts (Obama's own team already provided
forecasts), the Tea Party had yet to find a way to squeeze the
accusations into catchy sound-bites.
Thus, they cried out about the WRONG
PROBLEMS because of political decisions, demonstrating that they play
politics as usual; and are not the fresh, honest outsiders they want
to project.
