USA TODAY: … Republicans have opted for hollow rhetoric. They simply insert the words “job killing” before any mention of the health care law. It’s in the title of the repeal bill, expected to be voted on Wednesday. And House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, used the term seven times in a 14-minute news conference on the first day of the new Congress.
Simplistic labels, such as the effort to rebrand the estate tax as the “death tax,” can be smart politics if they subtly alter people’s perceptions. But a heavy-handed approach like this, which tells people what to think without any explanation for why, is unlikely to be effective. Not only that, it flies in the face of reality.
The evidence that the medical care reform law will be a job-killer is slim to none. While there is no shortage of rosy or pessimistic assessments produced by groups on either side of this debate, the few independent studies of the law’s impact on jobs have offered up resounding shrugs. In 2009, researchers at the RAND Corp. and the Lewin Group said its overall job impact would be minimal… (more)
