With just 10 days to go until President-elect Donald Trump is officially sworn into the White House, congressional Republicans have already made moves to repeal President Barack Obama’s landmark health care bill, commonly known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare.
On Wednesday, Jan. 4, the U.S. Senate voted 51 to 48 repeal the ACA, a decision that would put the GOP one step closer to gutting the 2010 health care law without having to endure a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, according to The Washington Times.
Getting rid of the historic bill, however, has caused quite the rift between Democrats and Republicans, along with the nearly 16.4 million Americans insured under Obamacare. The prospect of leaving a large chunk of the American population without health insurance has Democrats fighting tooth and nail to defend the legislation, while Republicans are determined to repeal it and replace it with something new.
One ACA user may have missed the memo on the consequences of Obamacare’s repeal, however, as he took to social media to openly celebrate the Senate vote. Little did he know that he, too, could possibly become one of the millions of Americans left uninsured.
“One step closer to fixing this mistake, and only a couple weeks left of Barry’s regime,” the user said of Senate Republicans’ 51 to 48 vote. “2017 is already looking up.”
He went on to lament about how Obamacare was a failure from the start, deeming it the “brain child” of liberals who failed to get Healthcare.gov up and running without errors.
Another user quickly condemned him and the Republican party as a whole for “celebrating the misfortune” of those who are insured through Obamacare and would lose it as a result of GOP efforts to repeal it.
“First, we’re talking about Obamacare, not the ACA,” the user in favor of Obamacare’s repeal responded. “Secondly, my health insurance is through the ACA, so I’m definitely not the kind of person to look down on others needing help.”
His confidence was short-lived, though, as two other Facebook users quickly informed him that the ACA and Obamacare were indeed the same thing.
Yet still, the self-assured user defended his stance on Obamacare’s repeal by incorrectly stating that the Affordable Care Act was what “[Republicans] had to come up with after Obamacare crashed and burned the way it did.”
His ignorance on the matter prompted the following responses.
“I can’t believe he hasn’t deleted this whole thing yet,” one of the opposing users wrote. “I would have purged this the second I realized I accidentally admitted to all my friends just how easily swayed I am by things like confirmation bias.”
The original user never did respond to his “naysayers,” but he clearly got a much-needed lesson in learning to research things for himself.
