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September 24, 2012 10:26 PM UTC

NRCC Cheesily Goes After Joe Miklosi

  • 15 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Here’s a new ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee, attacking CD-6 Democratic candidate Joe Miklosi on health care. Reflecting a degree of concern over the challenge Miklosi represents to incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Coffman, this well-produced ad hits Miklosi for his support in 2009 for Colorado House Bill 1273. HB09-1273, as some of you may recall, would have created a “Colorado health care authority” charged with development of a so-called “single payer” health care system in Colorado–where the government or a single insurance entity administers health insurance claims.

This legislation never got far, and was withdrawn by primary sponsor Rep. John Kefalas after it became clear it didn’t have support to pass the Colorado House. And to be fair, the bill was in the process of being overtaken by the larger debate on health care that ultimately resulted in the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a “Obamacare.” We don’t really have an opinion on “single payer” proposals for health care reform, except to say they’re a good bit more idealistic than seems possible to get enacted in the present irrational hyperpartisan political climate.

All things being equal the ad might have been a fair blow to land against Miklosi, even if a lot of voters might like “single payer” if they fully understood it–but of course, the NRCC doesn’t stop there. The ad segues from here into the debunked-so-many-times-it-makes-us-want-to-scream bogus claim that Obamacare “cuts $716 billion from Medicare.”

As for the allegation that Obamacare could “cost us 249,000 jobs?” Politifact says “False.”

The newer NFIB study projected that changes made by the health care will lead to price increases that “reduce private sector employment by 125,000 to 249,000 jobs in 2021, with 59 percent of those losses falling on small business.”

But experts outlined a number of reasons to be skeptical that the impact will be so large.

First, the employer payments under the law are “tiny,” said David Cutler, a Harvard University economist. The CBO estimated that employer and individual penalty payments will be $3 billion in 2014 and $12 billion in 2016. “Even today, total employee compensation is $8.3 trillion,” Cutler said. “So, they are claiming enormous effects from payments that are less than 0.2 percent of employee compensation.” [Pols emphasis]

A March 2011 analysis by the Urban Institute — an independent research organization — concurred, concluding that, on balance, the health care law is “unlikely to have major aggregate effects on the U.S. economy and on employment, primarily because the changes in spending and taxes are very small relative to the size of the economy.”

The NFIB report doesn’t appear to take into account the subsidies in the health care law, only the costs.

Bottom line: this is an ad that starts with an attack that won’t really sound that bad to many viewers, then switches to tired allegations about “Obamacare” that people can find were debunked months ago in about two minutes of Googling. On top of that, Miklosi can parade this big-ticket NRCC ad around as evidence he’s a real threat to Coffman! If we were Miklosi, we’d use this ad in a fundraiser, and thank the NRCC for helping with his name ID.

Comments

15 thoughts on “NRCC Cheesily Goes After Joe Miklosi

  1. I found the graphics somehow charming and it made me like him more. I can’t imagine anyone taking that kind of an ad seriously.

    This ad reminds me of that ad. Only Canadian, eh? Which is odd, who’s afraid of Canadians?

  2. The pols post about the debunked medicare claim is accurate, but what this ad doesn’t say is also interesting.

    Here’s the text:

    ANNOUNCER: Meet Joe Miklosi.

    He loves Canada.

    Back here he supported imposing a government run, Canadian-style healthcare system in Colorado.

    Now he wants to go to Washington.

    Where he’s for keeping the new healthcare law that cuts Medicare by $716 billion.

    A law that could cost us 249,000 jobs.

    And add $2,000 a year in taxes on some families.

    Joe Miklosi, ay?

    No way.

    Coming into this election season, Republicans were confident that Obamacare was toxic and that tying other Dems to Obama and Obamacare would help down ticket races.  Now, they are referencing the “new healthcare law” without the Obamacare label.  Is this because Obama’s  approval ratings are going up and down ticket repubs no longer want to explicitly run against him?  Not sure but I take the language of this ad as at best a vote of no confidence in Romney’s 2012 chances in Colorado.

        1. I’m not surprised by any of this. Back when Coors made the surprise move of entering politics (surprising because he’s 70 and never showed any interest in the past, and in that he’s going for Congress when the sons of influential families always go for the Senate, and surprising because the Coors family already gave this a go), the only thing that made sense to me was that the RNCC had asked him to run in order to force the Dems to divert resources to protect Perlmutter. It helped that he has instant name recognition and the ability to self-fund.

          I still think this is all a cynical ploy on the GOP’s part. They have no intention of actually beating Perlmutter, but they want to make him work at it and see if they can rough him up to the point of greater vulnerability the next time around.

          1. I’ve heard an Obama radio ad attacking Romney for saying he would repeal the law that allows people with pre-existing conditions to get health insurance “on his first day in office”.

            It’s an Obama ad that references Obamacare without using that term.  It clearly takes advantage of the fact that people like the provisions in the ACA even if they’re suspicious of “Obamacare.”  

            1. Sure- Obamacare had death panels and a double super secret process to get it drafted and passed.

              ACA, well, it’s long and boring, but no secret. Oh- and it’s just like Romney care, except MA is a state and America is a country.

  3. to be very, very scared of anything Canadian.  Canada is actually doing well.  Gone are the days when a vacation in Canada meant you could afford much better restaurants, hotels, etc. than you could in the states because the exchange rate gave you a third off on everything. Guess Canadian is the GOP’s new French.

    Between the fact that our business was doing so much better back then and the exchange rate we had a couple of terrific Vancouver and Vancouver Island vacations there. And everyone was so polite and patient whether we were driving a rental or taking public transportation and holding things up a bit asking questions.  Loved it.

    I saw this ad for the first time followed immediately by a positive Miklosi ad, warm in tone both visually and message-wise.  The contrast made the NRC anti-Miklosi ad look even more petty, ridiculous and mean than it did by itself.  

    I really don’t envision a happy ending but must say if the election were based on the two ads alone Miklosi would win hands down.    

  4. If it’s not over-the-top, it’s probably not acceptable in today’s Republican campaigning guide.

    You’re right, of course – if they’d stopped at the “single-payer” attack they would have possibly had a good ad. (Not a nice ad or necessarily an accurate ad, but an effective ad…) But the $700b Medicare attack has been debunked so widely at this point that I’m surprised they’re still using it. Still, I suppose you have to fill up 30 seconds somehow, and since this is an attack on Miklosi’s healthcare reform positions, it’s at least related.

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