“Unethical Website of the Month” doesn’t really do justice to CoveringHealthCareCA.com, and that’s even with the acknowledgement that this is the same Ethics Alarms category where the racist site Chimpmania is filed. CoveringHealthCareCA.com is an intentional effort to sabotage the Affordable Care Act in California, the one place where the “signature achievement” of the Obama administration didn’t completely collapse out of the starting gate. For Republican lawmakers to be doing this is beneath contempt, indefensible in every way, and the ethical equivalent of treason. The people who publish Chimpmania are hateful, vicious bigots, but they are marginal citizens and human beings. All societies have scum, and in the 21st Century, some of that scum will have racist websites. That is inevitable. It should not be inevitable for public servants to try to undermine their own government’s laws, health care system, and citizens for political gain.
CoveringHealthCare.com is a false flag website, launched by Republicans in the California Assembly to deceive Californians into believing it is an official Obamacare website, when it is, in truth, an anti-Obamacare website. Its address is similar—CoveringHealthCareCA.com vs. CoveredCa.com, the real site—and its design evokes the actual Obamacare sites. Its apparent purpose is to help citizens navigate the new health insurance system, except that once you begin clicking and reading, it slowly dawns–how slowly will vary— that this is something else, a collection of attacks and talking points against the Affordable Care Act.
Criticism is fine and legitimate, but Republicans know, like everyone else, that the public is unsettled by the (still) malfunctioning website that is at the center of the health care insurance enrollment process, and fearful of the effects of the new law on their health care options and costs. The public’s shaky trust in the system endangers its chances at success, because frustration and distrust will discourage participation, and without widespread acceptance and compliance, Obamacare won’t work. It is the duty of all elected officials of either party to do everything in their power to mitigate this disaster—and it is a disaster and will be a disaster—that the Democrats recklessly designed and foisted on the country, that the President lied about to get passed, and that both the President and the Democrats have unforgivably mismanaged. I doubt that anything short of dismantling the law, which is not going to happen and probably cannot happen, will avert the awful consequences of this epic, historic, embarrassing botch, but it doesn’t matter: the fact that a fire will probably burn out of control anyway does not excuse members of the fire department throwing kerosene on the blaze. That is what CoveringHealthCareCA is. Republicans are denying it, but that is all it is. It is sabotage.
Sabrina Demayo Lockhart, communications director for the Assembly GOP Caucus, insisted to ABC News that criticism of the website was unjust, and that its purpose was as noble as the day is long and as benign as a spring day. Why, how could anyone even think otherwise? The goal of the site is informational only! “It’s a complex law, and we wanted to make sure our constituents had the tools to understand what this law meant for them,” quoth Sabrina. And that’s why every effort was made to confuse Californians into going to that site when they just wanted to get health insurance and misleading them once they got there. Sabrina is a paid liar, working for elected liars.
“It’s outrageous that our elected officials in California are using taxpayer dollars to intentionally mislead their constituents and divert them from CoveredCA.com,” Dr. Paul Song, executive chairman of the progressive California-based group Courage Campaign, stated in a press release. “Republicans in Sacramento have wasted taxpayer dollars building a fake website in an attempt to sow confusion and fear, in a futile attempt to discredit the law.” Well, the law is fully capable of discrediting itself, and has only just begun—the word Song should have used in place of “futile” was “irresponsible,” “unethical,” or perhaps just “redundant.” Other than that, however, his statement is accurate, except that it is too mild.
I should also mention that this incident shows the conservative media failing at its journalistic duty exactly as its much criticized (mostly by them) leftward counterparts in the mainstream media do when they ignore or downplay stories that reflect badly on progressives, Democrats, or our flailing President. Is it that Republican assembly members engaging in this kind of low tactics to the detriment of their own constituency and its state’s citizens isn’t newsworthy in the jaundiced view of Fox, The Blaze, The Daily Caller and the conservative blogs, that they somehow missed the story, or that they approve of lawmakers sabotaging laws they oppose? I’d like to know which, so I can assess whether these sources are untrustworthy because they are stupid, incompetent, or unethical.
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Pointer: Mediaite
Sources: ThinkProgress, ABC News
Ethics Alarms 
Well done, you festering fuckwits in California…
I guess failing on its own wasn’t enough, you had to go and join it.
No fucking wonder Republicans are in the super minority in the state legislature…
And this is what makes an Ethics Trainwreck.
I’m trying to reach out to folks I know to find out why this isn’t getting coverage.
I worry that I might already know the answer…
ALL ABOARD!!!
Tex, that makes two days in a row now, that I have been suckered by one of your comments. I won’t accuse you or blame you – oh, I know who is to blame, trust me. But just so that you know, anytime I see a hyperlinked comment, “ALL ABOARD!,” in a blog that is in the context of a discussion of a train wreck, I expect to find at that link a performance of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.” A cover of it, at least.
All Aboard, indeed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MLp7YNTznE
Well, don’t consider it being suckered. I really think this thing is not just a train wreck, but a burning train wreck barreling towards us while we’re stuck on the track.
This does beg the question of why they believed they could get away with this.
Was it because elected officials routinely get away with it?
Or do they just assume that they could get away with it despite all evidence to the contrary?
Why did Michael Steele think that the RNC could get away with disguising a fundraising appeal as a census mailing? 1) They have no ethics alarms and 2) they’re morons.
It is the Stupid Party…
I’d say all of the parties are pretty stupid.
Let’s face it: We’re doomed.
Not to defend the false-flaggers: I seriously believe they are capitalizing on the twin pandemics of (1) ignorance and (2) lack of ethics, among California voters. So many people, so willing to fall for so many tricks that Democrats have gotten away with for so long, make the opportunity irresistible. That’s my theory – which leaves me all the more disgusted with the Republicans. Forget any “high road.” This isn’t Back to the Future; this is Back to the Stone Age: “Where we’re going, we don’t USE roads…”
And who is supposed to enforce the use of the high road?
In California? I don’t know who – do you?
The electorate…
Oh… I see your concern.
Exactly.
Hello, Jack,
Which offends you most, the damage to the general welfare from making health insurance work worse, the violation of principle involved in sabotaging any law, or the deception?
The fact that it’s elected legislators doing either.
I wouldn’t exactly call what they are doing “sabotage”, but it isn’t honest, and allows for a data point Dems will use to claim that there is sabotage…
I don’t think sabotage is accurate either. I agree with your analysis here. I think the real basis for this being unethical, in addition to your identification of it being dishonest, is that it uses tax payer money.
Otherwise, if it were a separately funded event, why wouldn’t Republicans do everything they believe necessary to inform people about the utter economic devastation and abject destruction of liberty that the ACA will wreak?
How about one of those Movie Ethics Breakdowns?
Republicans are rapidly making a third party look better and better.
I haven’t seen a good third party yet. If you find one that isn’t idiotically naive, let me know eh?
The libertarian party would be great, if we could get rid of the “wait, you said drugs should be legal? FUCKING AWESOME” fuckwits…
Well, the last one got Clinton elected twice. Good plan!
Third parties backfire in our election system because any vote in favor of the third party is a vote _against_ your second choice. There are plenty of other ways to collect votes that better reflect the will of the people: ranked choice, range voting, and so on.
It’s so discouraging to watch Republicans cave and cave and surrender instead of standing up for conservative values as their voters sent them to do. It’s much worse to watch conservatives do corrupt and unethical things, because unethical behavior by conservatives is always headline worthy. I don’t want conservative bad behavior to be ignored or condoned, but it would be nice if ALL bad behavior resulted in universal condemnation regardless of political affiliation.
Not a new Idea, I know, but it does get old.
“if ALL bad behavior resulted in universal condemnation regardless of political affiliation.”
Oh, yes. May it become so. People are putting tribal loyalties above truth and above right and wrong. The damage can be seen everywhere.