So, a lot of folks are talking about last night’s season premiere of Saturday Night Live and its skit on Obama’s sell of Obamacare. Many are commenting that it mocks Obamacare. I’m not sure I really saw it entirely the same way.
Check it out for yourself:
To set the scene for those of you who don’t feel like watching the video, several “regular Americans” are invited to approach the podium as Obama speaks to an audience to try and sell the Affordable Care Act.
The first is a woman who gleefully says she is psyched for Obamacare because now she can get sick as much as she wants. Another is a father who laments that Obama has made sure that his slacker adult son, who has pinched a nerve in a porn-viewing “accident,” will never have to lift a finger to get health insurance, thanks to Obama. He rushes off exclaiming, “Chris Christie in ’16!”
The skit then makes a quick slam on Ted Cruz’s quasi-filibuster, citing Dr. Seuss lines and demanding a government shutdown. Parody Cruz is escorted off the stage by security as he yells, “Horton may hear a who, but the only thing I’m hearing right now is Socialism!!!”
An iPhone customer jumps to the podium to decry that her new phone broke and hasn’t been fixed. Parody Obama says, “I believe you’re confusing Obamacare with AppleCare,” to which she responds, “either way, happened on your watch.”
An ER doctor then complains that if people in this country would just “stop putting stuff up their butts,” we’d save $5 billion a year in health care costs.
The highlight of the skit of course comes as “Breaking Bad‘s” Aaron Paul takes the stage, in his show’s character as Jesse Pinkman, to explain that a lack of affordable health care is to blame for the destructive path of his “friend,” implied to be the show’s main character, Walter White. White is a chemistry teacher who turned to a life of crime after being diagnosed with incurable lung cancer. (You have to watch Breaking Bad to understand the whole backstory, so you can read about that here).
Lastly, “Obamacare Oscar” does the “Health Care Boogie” to tell us all how easy it is to sign up for the health insurance plan. After Oscar falls off the stage, he begs that an ambulance not be called because he doesn’t have insurance. When Obama asks why he didn’t sign up, Oscar scoffs, “ah, it was too complicated to figure out.”
I don’t know, I saw it a little differently than some others. SNL seemed to be giving Obama a pass, to me. Here’s the message I took away after watching the skit: Poor Obama. Obamacare is unpopular because, you know, it’s just sooooo haaaaard to sell it to all you Americans who just can’t possibly understand it. It’s not that it’s a bad law, it’s that Americans just don’t get it.
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Comments
That’s the way I saw it too. The mere fact that SNL would use B.O. in a skit leads too many to see ridicule, where none is, because he’s been off limits for so long.
It looked sycophantic to me. Like the head of NBC ordered it – part of NBC’s week-long effort to “educate” Americans on the “benefits” of Obamacare.
True. Good catch!
I thought it was a riot. In particular the father and son. The father calls the son a loser because ObamaCare means that he doesn’t have to work to get health care. Obama doesn’t like so he has them hustled off stage by security. And of course the dancer at the end who’s supposed to rap why it’s so easy to sign didn’t sign up because it was too difficult. I don’t think it was giving the president a pass.
The real measure will be the left’s reaction.
If they got their marching orders that it was “cool”, they won’t have any reaction.
The only mockery is that the Obama character really has no clue of the effect the law will have on individuals or our health care system.
We had to pass it to find out what’s in it….
I’m pretty much with you on your assessment. Most of the skit put forward SNL’s list of crazies who oppose Obamacare or have no idea what it actually is. Of course anyone who opposes or is ignorant of ObamaCare must be crazy. Poor Obama and woe is the nation that has to be held hostage by such crazies.
To me was the only bit that hit home was ‘Obamacare Oscar’. It showed the absurdity of Obama in saying “Trust me because we have a great program not only for explaining but also for implementing the law. We’ve got it all under control.” Who in the world would want to sign up with Obamacare Oscar as the spokesman and their sign-up helper?
It seems that their conclusion is that “it’s just sooooo haaaaard” to understand.
Therefore, it is only logical [to them and their elite pals] that the People [you know, the 99% who are all “LoFo”] need something much more simple [i.e., single payer].
SNL hasn’t been worth watching in a decade, or whenever it was that Will left. Humorless Progs are humorless.
None of those people will be participating in Obamacare
Advertising for Obamacare and getting disses in against Cruz and the Tea Party under the guise of doing a skit.
After Oscar falls off the stage, he begs that an ambulance not be called because he doesn’t have insurance.
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That part was hardly true to life. Oscar said he was an illegal alien from Liberia, whose family had come to the U.S. to get welfare benefits. Illegals know they can go to the E.R. for “free,” and they do it often (which is one of the many reasons U.S. health care costs are out of control). The 1986 federal law known as EMTALA requires U.S. hospitals to treat any emergency patient who shows up, regardless of ability to pay, and regardless of citizenship status.
A real-life Oscar would not have avoided the E.R. because of lack of insurance; instead, he would have been demanding both an ambulance and his “free” E.R. medical care, since those are his “rights” as a foreigner living illegally in the U.S.
Illegals know far more about the “free” stuff they’re “entitled” to in the U.S. than most American citizens know — thanks largely to the taxpayer-funded efforts of “community organizing” groups like ACORN and La Raza (for example, the Obamacare law provides millions of taxpayer dollars to such groups, for “community outreach”).
This has happened before, when SNL was touted on Twitter as having criticized or mocked Obama. I got all excited, only to watch and see that they had treated him with kid gloves. This time I didn’t fall for the bait, and I was right. They portray Obama as Mr. Reasonable, surrounded by idiots (which is how they perceive him). If that’s what passes for mocking or ridiculing the Democrats’ messiah, I’ll continue to pass on SNL.
Did SNL really mock Obamacare?
Is the Pope Catholic?
To both questions, the answer seems uncertain.
At least bears still sh*t in the woods…for now.
As I listened, I was reminded of Samuel Jackson’s recent complaint that “Obama should stop ‘dumbing down’ his language to ‘relate’ to ordinary Americans.”
Speaking in an interview with Playboy magazine, the actor questioned the president’s reasons for changing his speech, saying: ‘First of all, we know it ain’t because of his blackness, so I say stop trying to “relate.”
‘Be a leader. Be f******g presidential. Look, I grew up in a society where I could say “It ain’t” or “What it be” to my friends.
‘But when I’m out presenting myself to the world as me, who graduated from college, who had family who cared about me, who has a well-read background, I f*****g conjugate’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2431728/Be-f-cking-presidential-Samuel-L-Jacksons-extraordinary-rant-Barack-Obama-accused-president-dumbing-speech.html#ixzz2gJVAfO4W
Sammy should lighten up…they are both actors playing their parts after all.
Mutha effing snakes on this mutha effing plane.
What’s SNL?
I stopped watching the minute they slammed Cruz.
Than and the fact that I can’t stand to listen to someone who even sounds like Obama.
The real question is not wether informed viewers saw this opening as pro or anti-obamacare, rather how the low info voters (who are, truth be told, the key demo for SNL) saw it.
My guess, Mandy, is that the writers and producers of SNL were being too clever by half, attempting to subtly impart the message you saw, but one that was well over the heads of that key Dem demo.
Right.
*yawn*
The hacks at SNL are as corrupt as the hacks at NBC news.
Whether intended or not, they spent most of the time trotting out the reasons why Obamacare should not be available to all. Some people in this country need a gut check or a kick in the pants to straighten up and be part of the solution instead of a leech in a swamp of leeches.
I got this message.
Obama smart. General public dumb.
Since he’s in the white house and its their funeral. I’d say they got it right for 51% of the country.
Gently pro-Obama.
Question: What high school chemistry teacher in America doesn’t have gold-plated health insurance?