Letter to the editor: Affordable Care Act’s impact being wrongly portrayed

Today in our mailbox came a brochure from the "60 Plus Association" (according to the Internet, a "nonprofit" which can legally accept corporate donations, is not required to disclose its funding sources, and suddenly has millions to spend).

The mailing was all about bashing the Affordable Care Act (with photos of seniors tearing their hair out over medical bills). This was highlighted: "Congressional Budget Office: 'Obamacare to Cost $1.93 Trillion, Leave 30 Million Uninsured.'" A quick search found the government site where their "quote" came from: "Once again, the Congressional Budget Office has found that repealing the health care law will increase the federal budget deficit by more than ... a trillion dollars in the next decade. CBO also found that 30 million Americans would remain uninsured without the Affordable Care Act."

They left off half the quote to make it seem the exact opposite, which is obscene. It is also, sadly, politics as usual. Millions are being spent on this kind of lies on the belief that we voters are either stupid, or too lazy to check things out (or maybe that those "60 plus" are both).

We're only at the beginning of an exorbitantly expensive avalanche of misleading political ads. They trust that we're idiots. Don't be one.

Carol Turnbull - Woodbury

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion, updates, elections