A Vocabulary Lesson

("Health Care Law Projected to Cut Labor Force")

Exacerbate - to make worse
 

Ameliorate - to improve

Voluntary  - of one's choosing

The CBO report advises that, for many millions, the crushing fear of being without health insurance will be removed thanks to the impact of the Affordable Care Act. As lives are improved, many in our midst will feel a freedom that has until now been denied.

The projection that more than two million people over the next decade may make the voluntary determination to reduce their hours in the workforce is a good thing. It is a statement of the positive impact of the law.

Yet in the world of misdirection, otherwise known as the Republican spin cycle, facts and figures are removed from context. No longer is this a decision made by the worker, but somehow morphs into a statement of the shortcomings of the health care system, to a universe where employers are compelled to take away opportunity from the beleaguered.

All it requires for misinterpretation to prevail is a willing proponent and a susceptible listener. Having been relentlessly informed that the signature piece of legislation to come out of the Obama years is an unfolding disaster, it will take very little to convince far too many of the truth of the latest assertion.

For the chicanery from the Republican machine to fail, the true conclusions of this report must be emphatically revealed and reenforced. In the end, it must be shown that, contrary to the words coming from deceitful mouths, numbers on a page can't actually dance and to ameliorate does not actually mean to exacerbate.