AUGUSTA — Seventy-five thousand Mainers are dead today.

That’s what the Portland Press Herald would have you believe.

That is, if Congress had not passed an overwhelmingly partisan, unworkable, complex, unaffordable, debt-inducing piece of legislation, 75,000 Maine people would be dead – and you could be one of them.

They are walking zombies. Dead people all around us.

The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram Editorial Board stated (“Our View: No need to hurry the repeal of Obamacare,” Jan. 8) that “Congress is preparing to start voting this week to repeal the (Affordable Care Act) with nothing in place to help 75,000 Mainers … whose lives could depend on it.”

The ACA is Obamacare, so there you have it. If Congress had not passed this law, there would be 75,000 fewer living people in Maine.

In this heightened rhetoric which unfortunately surrounds our politics today, it is time to take a step back, take a deep breath, and think about reality.

Despite the media hype from time to time that includes both Democrats and Republicans, most Americans in all walks of life are well-meaning and decent people.

In Maine, the media have reported, 80 percent of individual Obamacare enrollees are “insured” by just one company: Community Health Options, a company that is losing tens of millions of dollars yearly. How long can that ship stay afloat?

Some leaders are simply saying: “It doesn’t work. It is not working. It is not sustainable.”

Don’t advocate for a failed program just for the sake of politics while using hyperbole like walking zombies and ignoring key facts. Let’s save that for the TV melodramas. Following the hyperbolic logic of the Telegram editorial, all the people who can no longer afford insurance because of Obamacare and are instead paying an Internal Revenue Service fine have had their lifelines cut.

Those who lost their plan, or doctor, after being promised “if you like it, you can keep it” have now lived years under the actual circumstances the Telegram fictionally created for others, while the Editorial Board ignored the actual “repeal and replace” scenario that Congress is working on.

During this time, Obamacare drove costs out of sight, cost taxpayers enormous amounts of money and increased our national debt.

All but a few of the Obamacare co-ops across the country have collapsed. Non-partisan actuaries are saying Obamacare is in a “death spiral” right now.

Beyond the Telegram’s hyperbole is a deep misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the facts. They showcase an ignorance of the tens of millions of people adversely affected by Obamacare and of the tens of millions more relying on Obamacare who can be helped by congressional action to make health insurance work again.

We owe it to Congress, and those Americans hurt now or in the future, to let them work toward solutions instead of insisting we watch the current system collapse under its own weight while we play politics.

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