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Run, Democrats, run! (On Obamacare)

Run, Democrats, run! (On Obamacare)

As we approach Obamacare’s 4th anniversary, public disapproval of the law remains strong, steady

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, is about to turn four. Unfortunately for the law and its proponents, a recent poll shows the public’s continuous disapproval of the controversial law isn’t going anywhere — except, perhaps, up.

As the four-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act approaches, the law remains unpopular with the public. Currently, 53% disapprove of the 2010 health care law while 41% approve of the law. Opinion of the measure is virtually unchanged since last September.

Obamacare Approval Chart

The poll also pointed out, to the relief of some Obamacare supporters, that the majority of the law’s opponents want to try fix the law, rather than torpedo it.

A majority of ACA opponents – representing 30% of the public overall – want politicians to do what they can to make the law work as well as possible, compared with 19% of the public that wants elected officials to do what they can to make it fail. These opinions are little changed from December, but in the September poll opponents were more evenly divided over how they wanted elected officials to deal with the law.

Ed Morrisey at HotAir notes, however, that this statistic isn’t necessarily all that significant in the scheme of things.

Most opponents of ObamaCare who want repeal aren’t agitating for politicians to sabotage the law. They want it repealed because they believe it cannot succeed in the first place, and that it will create long-term damage to the American economy, to health care, and to personal liberty — all of which, by the way, we’ve already seen in the short term. If that’s how the question was asked (and it appears it was), those results are useless.

Meanwhile, it’s notable that the impression of ObamaCare is worse among independents (37/59) than the general population (41/53). Very few of the other demos give Democrats much reason for hope, either. Black voters are overwhelmingly in favor of it, but not to the same extent they normally support Democrats (77/18). Half of voters under 30 years of age support it, but it’s a virtual tie with disapproval (50/47), with majorities disapproving in every other age demo. The same approval percentage applies to college graduates, with all other education demos firmly disapproving of the law. Every income demo has an underwater rating; even among those earning less than $30K per year, the law gets a 45/47 virtual split.

The question then becomes this: who are the targets of the Democratic pitch on ObamaCare? Nancy Pelosi wants Democrats to run on the law as a boon to their base, but as Erika noted yesterday, Larry Sabato thinks that’s a disastrous strategy.  He warns that Democrats talking about ObamaCare will only boost turnout for their opponents. This is a trap of their own making, the petard by which Democrats will hoist themselves in November. It only looks good from the safe seats, as Sabato points out, and when massive premium increases hit this fall, there may be fewer of those safe seats than Pelosi imagines.

I’m in complete agreement with Sabato and Morrisey on this. It would be disastrous for Democrats to embrace the fruits of their hyper-partisan labor four years ago.

With this in mind, I hope every Democrat running takes Nancy Pelosi’s advice. If they do, those “safe” seats are going to be hard to come by.

(Featured Image Source: YouTube)

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Comments

I wish they would do a poll on what changes people think should be made to Obamacare. I would like to hear what democrats think should be changed and what should be kept.

I feel it is awful that some people had their insurance premiums increased a lot and/or their deductibles increased a lot while having their network of doctors reduced. Also, it seems that once a person discovers a problem, it seems that that problem is not solved quickly. In fact, Obamacare seems too confusing, too big and ever changing. With all the incorrect info out there how could people even correctly choose the best insurance for themselves?

It’s the long game the Left is playing. Give it another generation and no one will have any recollection what private insurance was or how good they once had it and will simply be grateful for Obamacare. Look what the Left did to England after WWII. The long game of destroying expectations and building supplication to the State.

    That’s very true. This has to be overturned in the next two congresses. The next congress (along with the senate) has to pass bills defunding ObamaCare and let Obama veto it again. And again. And again. Let this be forefront in the 2016 presidential race with the Republican candidate saying “the first thing I’m going to do is sign the congressional bill into law.”

The people who believe that this law can be “fixed” are also people who believe that you can pick up a turd by the “clean” end.

Changes needed:

1) Eliminate penalties for not purchasing insurance.
2) Eliminate all requirements for coverage.
3) Make catastrophic insurance tax deductible and tax all other insurances as income.

The “changes” people want are lower premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. It ain’t happening, Toots, the price is going up, not down.

And despite the delays designed to push the rest of the catastrophic premium hikes past the mid-term, what happened to the individual market is going to happen to the small group market and eventually the large group market.

You simply cannot cover more conditions with the mandated package, offer it to more people, subsidize those who can’t afford it, and cover pre-existing conditions at normal rates without most people paying significantly more.

It’s called, “math.”

Captain Keogh | March 23, 2014 at 12:06 am

Wait until their premiums double or triple in price later this year.