November 03, 2014 05:13 PM UTC

Fake Health Care Cancellation Letters Hit HD-17

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• by: Colorado Pols

There have been so many factually challenged campaign mailers this election season that most voters are inured to their claims–for good or ill, and maybe by design–of some organizations who have purposefully "flooded the zone" with so many shrill claims that voters tune out by sheer volume.

One we were just forwarded today, though, provokes recipients to open it due to a highly deceptive message on the envelope of the mailer, much like those misleading extended warranty offers you get about your car. Check this out:

We apologize for the low-quality scan, it's as received. But you can see this mailing from Republican-aligned Colorado Citizens for Accountable Government is intended to mimic a health insurance cancellation notice–the kind that Republicans have grandstanded about for over a year now. The whole narrative of the "335,000 cancellations" in Colorado is deceptive, since over 90% of those "cancellations" were in fact renewal notices, and in truth, the rate of uninsured in Colorado has plummeted since the Affordable Care Act's implementation.

It's not surprising to see the cancellations canard in use, but creating a fake cancellation letter is an awfully deceptive way to get people's attention. We can imagine residents of Colorado HD-17, where this mailer was distributed, genuinely being frightened by this–especially since the real letters sent out about insurance policy changes last year were not worded in nearly as alarming a manner.

We assume this friendly message was not inside the envelope you see above.

Who knows why Rep. Tony Exum is being targeted with a crazy mailer like this at all–elected in 2012, Exum wasn't even in office when either Obamacare passed federally or when Colorado set up our bipartisan health insurance marketplace. But in an election season perhaps more chock-full of false statements than any we can remember, we're probably overanalyzing.

This is just how the game is played now.