Douglas 1 Dariel Douglas Professor Guenzel ENC 1101-0011 8 October 2013 Will We Ever Come To Agreement?

Recently, on September 30th, our government shut down due to Congress not passing the spending bill for the Affordable Care Act also referred to as Obamacare. President Obama wanted to get funding for Obama care approved, but Congress would not give in. Republicans wanted to delay Obamacare for one year to prevent the law from happening or at least fix everything wrong with it so we could at least have better healthcare. On the other hand, Democrats did not think anything needed to be fixed about the law, so they wanted to go ahead and pass it. President Obama would not allow this act to be delayed any longer and since neither side would give in, Congress would not approve this spending bill causing the government to shut down. The goal of Obamacare is for Americans to be able to have more affordable health insurance no matter who you are (What is Obamacare). Currently there are over forty-four million Americans who do not have health insurance. Obamacare obligates to help individuals and get them health insurance through Medicaid and Medicare. President Obama states that Obamacare eliminates pre-existing conditions and gender discrimination, meaning no one can be charged more or be dropped from their health insurance coverage for health or gender related reasons (What is Obamacare). Obama wants to make sure insurers are not dropping customers once they get sick. Obamacare will increase consumer protections, exempts you from almost every tax they levy, give health care coverage to any legal U.S resident who does not

Douglas 2 have quality health care, it hopes to change health care by cutting out waste, change where funding goes, and most importantly, give health care to all Americans no matter what age, skin color, or gender (What is Obamacare). To see how recent articles participate in the public discourse, I chose two articles to analyze. The first viewpoint is an expressed article written by Henry Blodget, who is a Democrat (Henry Blodget, Wikipedia). His article was written on October 2nd, 2013, two days after the government shut down. He writes an article based on his own theories of why Republicans hate Obamacare. Daniel Horowitz writes the second viewpoint chosen, four days after the government shutdown on October 4th, 2013. Horowitz is a Republican writing an article on why the Democrats will always support Obamacare no matter what (Henry Blodget, Wikipedia). Both authors base their opinions off of their own theories, but how well does each author understand the opposing viewpoint? The first article written by Henry Blodget is called Republicans Hate Obamacare Because Theyre Afraid People Will Like It. When reading Blodgets article, you can tell he is exploring other peoples opinions and he states himself that these are all theories of why Republicans hate Obamacare. Blodget writes his article in a somewhat sarcastic tone, asking rhetorical questions of not understanding why the Republicans hate Obamacare, when it could actually work. At the end of the article, Blodget even writes, So maybe the Republicans should stop fighting Obamacare and just call it Cruz-care (Blodget). Blodget writes that Republicans believe health care reform is necessary but they agreed that the specifics of Obamacare were too confusing, complicated, and had too high of costs (Blodget). Blodget states his theory that Republicans are scared that Obamacare will actually work and Americans living

Douglas 3 in red states will actually approve of Obamacare and Republicans will lose those red state votes (Blodget). Henry Blodgets article is about why Republicans hate Obamacare. Daniel Horowitz writes the second article, Ive chosen, on why Democrats love Obamacare, called Democrats still united in Obamacare battle, Republicans in disarray for Fox News. Horowitz also writes an opinion piece. Horowitz believes that the Democrats support Obamacare because they have to stay united. They do not believe anything needs to be fixed, so they remain completely behind Obama for not wanting to delay this law and to get the law started up (Horowitz). Just like Republicans, they support something they believe in, even if it did cause the government to shut down (Horowitz). When analyzing this article, I noticed that Horowitz does not support the idea of Democrats always staying behind Obama through everything. Horowitz even writes, When Democrats proposed the federal takeover of the healthcare sector in 2009, they all remained united behind an uncompromising position and aggressive tactics (Horowitz), supporting the fact that he knows Democrats will always be behind Obama. According to Keith Grant-Davies article, Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents, audiences are potential customers or anyone who reads or hears a text, or even an audience an author imagines (Writing About Writing. 101). Grant-Davie states that a rhetor is a person who generates the purpose, needs values, and expectations of a situation (Writing About Writing. 101). Exigency is a problem or need that is addressed by communication (Writing About Writing. 102). Grant-Davie states that constraints are factors that limit or focus the response to the exigence in a given situation (Writing About Writing. 102).

Douglas 4 The implied audiences for these two articles are the people who go on Business Insider Daily and Fox News and read the articles written by Henry Blodget and Daniel Horowitz. Since Blodget is in fact a Democrat and writing for a Democratic website (Business Insider), he is going towards a Democratic Party audience and since Horowitz is a Republican, he could in fact be doing the same thing and going towards a more Republican Party audience. Their audience could also be anyone who searches anything along the lines of Republicans vs. Democrats on government shutdown on the Internet. Looking around Business Insiders website, they try to attract their audience with fast-paced words and go towards a younger more liberal audience. Based on Fox Newss website, they seem to want to connect to an older audience. When I looked Blodget up, I found that he was a Democrat. Blodget graduated from Yale and is now the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Business Insider. He also wrote a book called The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual: A Consumer's Guide to Intelligent Investing and has written numerous articles (Wikipedia). Horowitz is a Republican who graduated from Hampshire College and is now an American defense attorney. He has also written two articles for Fox News website (Wikipedia). Daniel Horowitz is an editor to RedState.com He is also a policy director of the Madison Project (Fox News). The exigence is reading that both authors attempt to describe the opposing viewpoint of the party they actually support. Blodget is getting his audience to see his theories on why Republicans hate Obama care, while Horowitz does the same thing on why Democrats support Obamacare. In their articles, they even make it seem like the other parties are acting somewhat stupid by their opinions and tone of voice throughout the article. Horowitz writes, Fast-

Douglas 5 forward four years and Democrats are just as united in their obduracy, despite the fact that Obamacare is even more unpopular and unworkable than ever before. Horowitz even states in his article that even when the democrats stated the takeover of healthcare in 2009, the stood behind Obama in an uncompromising state. He also says that the even though the majority of the Democrats knew everyone opposed their proposal, they still were willing to do anything to support it. In Blodgets article, he writes, So maybe the Republicans should stop fighting Obamacare and just call it Cruz-care. While both authors are attempting to describe the opposing parties viewpoint. Neither of the authors have actual evidence of what they are stating. Their constraints are sharing their own beliefs and assumptions but having no evidence to back that belief up. In Blodgets article he writes, So why are the Republicans outraged? Well there are different theories (Blodget). Blodget puts in an article link written by Eduardo Porter but also says, he adds an interesting theory. Blodget and Porter suggest that Republicans are afraid Americans will actually like Obamacare. Horowitz states that not a single Democrat has spoken out against Harry Reids refusal (Horowitz). Horowitz writes in his article about the Democrats always standing up for the unpopular bill (Horowitz). When analyzing these two texts, you notice that neither articles actually has evidence to support their claims, but just in fact theories. When I analyzed these two texts, I found that both authors of the articles are in fact writing about opposite parties that they support. The two articles focus on the ideas of why Democrats and Republicans disagree or agree with Obamacare. Henry Blodget focuses on Republicans hating Obamacare because they are scared Americans will love it. Daniel Horowitz writes about why Democrats loving Obamacare because they want Americans to love it. Neither

Douglas 6 articles support their theories of why the parties they are writing about feel about Obamacare. Since they had no evidence to support their claim in the end, how well did they really understand the opposing viewpoint?

Douglas 7 Works Cited Blodget, Henry. Republicans Hate Obamacare Because They're Afraid People Will Like It. Business Insider. N.p., 2 Oct. 2013. Web. 8 Oct. 2013.

Daniel Horowitz. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Aug. 2013. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.

Henry Blodget. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.

Horowitz, Daniel. Democrats Still United in ObamaCare Battle, Republicans in Disarray. Fox News. FOX News Network, 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 8 Oct. 2013.

What Is ObamaCare / What Is Health Care Reform http://obamacarefacts.com/whatisobamacare.php? N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2013.