Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann certainly stuck to her talking points on Sunday’s Meet the Press.
Despite David Gregory’s persistent attempts, Bachmann danced around almost every question. She had a point to make and that point didn’t include responding to Gregory’s questions. She was sticking to her message and she was going to make it- no matter how embarrassing the outcome might be.
Her new “revelation” focused on the discovery of $105 billion in appropriations fundi
ng supporting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed last year. Her web site comments, “Recently, I read startling information about the funding of ObamaCare. . .” and goes on, “Because now, months after passage, we are discovering an astonishing $105,464,000,000 has already been appropriated to the Health and Human Services Secretary for ObamaCare through FY2019.”
Bachmann even sandwiched her “support card” showing the $105 billion number to all viewers in response to a totally unrelated question thinking it would provide extra emphasis.
She credits her revelation to an article she recently read- and the rest is history. She was off and running- despite the fact that these numbers have been out there since the beginning.
The numbers are true. There were a lot of appropriations made in the ACA for grants and funding in many different areas. These include funding for the health insurance exchanges, school-based health centers, expanded primary care residency programs, health care education at the community levels, and others. There were allocations made for many “oversight” organizations we could probably do without considering where we are from a fiscal perspective.
But unless you simply didn’t read the law, or are totally uninformed of what is included, this should not have been “startling information” especially for someone in Congress.
The Congressional Research Service published a report last October identifying the appropriations included in the law. There is nothing hidden. Representative Bachmann must just be getting to reading it now- or she has been waiting for another source to read it for her.
The costs of our health care system are continuing to increase and will continue to increase if nothing is done. The ACA needs a lot of work to fix if we’re going to fix it, or another approach had better be ready if we’re going to repeal it. Politics aside, we’re at a tipping point in health care.
If Representative Bachmann is going to be speaking for the Tea Party, I would recommend she get her facts straight before talking to a national audience again. If she is “shocked and surprised” at this late stage that is her fault for not being informed.
She shouldn’t assume the rest of the American people are as uninformed as she is.
