North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan has found herself in deep trouble for her re-election chances, primarily due to her continued support of, and vote for, Obamacare, ie the “Affordable” Care Act. Tom Tillis is, with all due respect to the other Republicans fighting for the GOP nomination, the strongest in the field. So, what else is there to do by attack Tom? Well, some truth might help
(Politifact) In her quest to win a second term, Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., has been hit hard by attacks over her vote for Obamacare. In a recent radio ad, she fights back, charging that her potential Republican opponent, state House Speaker Thom Tillis, actually said he liked the health care law.
Here’s a portion of the narration in Hagan’s ad:
“Politicians. These days, you’ve got to watch them close. Real close. Here’s Republican Senate candidate Thom Tillis describing Obamacare: (Audio clip of Tillis) ’It’s a great idea.’ That’s right. Thom Tillis called Obamacare ‘a great idea.’ That was on the Bill LuMaye Show just this February. You can look it up.”
The clip is played quite a bit on the local talk radio stations, mostly in an attempt to turn Conservatives away from Tillis.
Is the ad correct that Tillis is a closet fan of Obamacare, even though his own campaign website calls for a “full repeal” of the law and labels it “a cancer on our national economy and it threatens the quality of every American’s health care”?
As it turns out, Hagan’s ad uses just half of the quote. Let’s go to the audiotape.
Tillis made his comment on the Raleigh, N.C.-based talk show hosted by Bill LuMaye on Feb. 6, 2014. Here’s some of the conversation that preceded and followed the snippet used in Hagan’s ad. (snip to the relevant quote)
Tillis concluded, “I think there’s a lot of things we can do if we focus on a systematic approach to eliminating the bad — and the majority of the stuff that is in Obamacare is bad, because it’s not fiscally sustainable. It’s a great idea that can’t be paid for — let’s focus on the net problem versus a policy that’s creating as many problems as it fixes in terms of health care, and then it’s also creating the most devastating problem of a deficit and debt that we can’t afford.”
So what Tillis actually did in the interview was to call Obamacare “a great idea that can’t be paid for.” And most of his comments before that discussed ways to repeal the bill, not support for it.
Health insurance reform is a great idea. However, it was done in a really bad way that cannot be paid for, is creating winners and losers (lots of losers), increasing costs, putting government in bed with our health care decisions, and, really, do you really have insurance if you can’t afford the deductible? Or are you simply paying for a few benefits and the knowledge that the IRS cannot tax/fine you?
Hagan’s ad says Tillis “called Obamacare ‘a great idea.’ ” That’s a severely edited quote. What Tillis actually said was that Obamacare is “a great idea that can’t be paid for.” Pulling out that tiny sound bite gives a highly misleading view of what Tillis said in the interview.
They find the ad to be “mostly false”.
