October 20, 2010

Quote of the Day: The Great Conservative ACA Sham

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From Boeing spokeswoman Karen Forte:

If you would’ve asked me if we would’ve made these changes without the enactment of the law, I would’ve said yes.

The subject is the healthcare reform law, and whether Boeing is making changes to its health plan because of the law’s new regulations. The answer is no. Contrary to what they said in a letter to employees, they were planning to make them anyway.

Once again with feeling: healthcare reform is a wonderful excuse for companies to use when they decide to pare back benefits. It’s also a wonderful talking point for conservatives to haul out whenever anything changes in the healthcare industry. There’s just one thing: the claims are almost never true. Either the changes aren’t actually happening in the first place or they’re changes that would have happened anyway.

You should expect to continue hearing a tidal wave of claims that ACA is damaging access to healthcare in one way or another. About 1% of the time there will be something to it. The other 99% of the time it will quickly turn out to be hooey, but you won’t find out about that on the front page. You’ll find out about it, at best, on page A17. Caveat emptor.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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