This is an absolute classic out of the Dem/MSM playbook. Take a huge, expensive, inefficient, government program. Find someone with a heartwrenching story who is helped by it. Highlight that story as if it represents the essence of the program in question. Bonus points if you can get someone to choke up on camera.
Reporters noticed that after Kavanaugh was confirmed, the Democrats shifted the agenda to health care as the central issue of the midterms. And thus it was that today's Morning Joe featured a segment in which NBC reporter Morgan Radford traveled to Ohio ahead of President Trump's rally there. She found Colleen, a mother whose daughter had developed cancer at age seven, who said that "it was life-changing, what the ACA [Obamacare] did for us." She is worried that it might be changed to eliminate pre-existing conditions. Radford met with a group of women the mother had organized. She said that they're "getting politically active for the very first time."
Radford scored a double: both Colleen, and a woman in the group whose mother has cancer, got emotional on camera. That second woman warned: "if you don't think it's going to happen to you: it will." Translation: everybody needs Obamacare!
Concluded Radford: "Colleen and her friends say it is an all-out fight until November." And you know who they'll be fighting for—right along with NBC and the rest of the MSM.
What Radford never discussed: that it's very feasible to provide compassionate help for the people truly in need without forcing the entire country into a bureaucratic, expensive government program that limits their freedoms. And of course she never spoke with anyone who lost their health insurance because they couldn't afford the rocketing Obamacare premiums.
Note: Radford has the quintessential liberal media pedigree: Harvard undergrad, Fulbright scholar, journalism masters from Columbia. Oh, and before coming to NBC, she hosted a news show for Al Jazeera America:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Concerns about health care are one of the top issues in the midterms and it is no different in Ohio. An important state to president Trump's re-election. Joining us now from Lebanon, Ohio, Morgan Ratford. Morgan, you spoke with voters about this. What did they say?
MORGAN RADFORD: Mika, we sure did. And we're standing here in Lebanon, Ohio, and this is one of the reddest districts in the state. It's also where the President is coming to hold his rally tonight. And of course, Mika, when we go to cover these rallies, we hear a lot about his populist message, even his personality and his popularity. But we don't always hear about specific policies. And there is one policy that the voters here in Ohio say that he must address when he comes tonight, and that's health care.
Admittedly it is a topic that many of them say they didn't really think about until it impacted them personally, like Colleen Bowman. She has a 14-year-old daughter who was diagnosed with cancer seven years ago. And ever since then she's been fighting to make sure that her daughter's covered, even though she has a pre-existing condition.
So she got all her friends together here in Ohio. And they've been pounding the pavement. And they're getting politically active for the very first time this mid-term election year and it's all about this one issue. Health care. Take a listen.
RADFORD: Just from a show of hands, how many of you would say health care is one of the most important issues to you in this election? All of you.
COLLEEN BOWMAN: My daughter was diagnosed with melanoma at 7, one year after the ACA -- sorry. [chokes up]
RADFORD: No, don't [apologize].
BOWMAN: And it was life-changing what the ACA did for us.
FRIEND 1: She's now cancer-free. However, we now have to worry about that she will not be covered because of not having the protection of pre-existing conditions.
RADFORD: So this is a new concern.
FRIEND 1: Yes.
BOWMAN: I will say the first thought that we -- I had after we went through all these tests was, thank God she's protected.
RADFORD: Is it something you feel like you don't have any more?BOWMAN: I feel like we are in serious jeopardy of having that slip away and I worry about it every single day. I lose sleep over it. Every single thing in my life right now is fighting to go make sure that she keeps insurance. Not only will it affect her health care, it will affect her financial security for the rest of her life.
RADFORD: From a Republican standpoint, how do you feel about affordable health care?
FRIEND 2: I think it's a necessity. I think there are things that need to be changed about it. But I think that in the way things are going right now, if nobody is willing to talk to to each other, we need some bipartisan conversation to get things going or we're going to lose, you know, the pre-existing conditions, everything, and nobody is going to be able to afford any sort of health care at the rate things are going right now.
FRIEND 3: My mom was diagnosed with cancer in November. So now I'm going to meetings and appointments with her and watching them ask the doctor if there's cancer drugs that are on insurance.
RADFORD: They're affordable.
FRIEND 3: Right. So [chokes up] if you don't think it's going to happen to you, it will. It will in some shape or form affect a family member.
RADFORD: Were you all politically active before this mid-term season?
FRIEND 3: None of us were.
RADFORD: Colleen and her friends say it's an all-out fight until November. But they're also not alone. 52% of Americans at a recent NBC poll found that they would not likely vote for a candidate who wants to repeal or limit the Affordable Care Act.
