Byron York:
Some Democrats and their advocates in the press believe Obamacare, a year into implementation, is no longer much of a factor in the midterm elections. But no one has told Republican candidates, who are still pounding away at the Affordable Care Act on the stump. And no one has told voters, especially those in states with closely contested Senate races, who regularly place it among the top issues of the campaign.
In Arkansas, Republican challenger Tom Cotton is pulling ahead of incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor partly on the strength of a relentless focus on Obamacare. Cotton’s newest ad attacks Pryor over the law, as did two of Cotton’s four previous ads.
“In our polling, [Obamacare] continues to be just as hot as it’s been all year long,” says a source in the Cotton campaign. “If you look at a word cloud of voters’ biggest hesitation in voting for Mark Pryor, the two biggest words are ‘Obama’ and ‘Obamacare.’ Everything after that is almost an afterthought.”
Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, is pushing just as hard. “Sen. Landrieu, I voted for you before, but when you voted for Obamacare, I knew I’d made a mistake,” says a woman in a Cassidy ad featuring Landrieu voters who say her support of the health care law turned them away from Democrats.
Joni Ernst, leading the Senate race in Iowa, is pushing hard on Obamacare, too. And in North Carolina, where Republican Thom Tillis is trying to catch up to incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, Obamacare is not just a bad law leading to higher premiums, high deductibles and narrower choices of doctors — it’s also a window into Hagan’s character.
“Its importance is not only in the policy itself, but more so in the fact that Sen. Hagan said at least 24 times that ‘if you like your healthcare, you can keep it,'” says a Tillis campaign source.
So Republican candidates bash Obamacare and move up in the polls. Given that public opinion remains firmly against the healthcare law — as it has been for years — that’s not a shock. Democratic beliefs to the contrary are probably wishful thinking.
Polls suggest that more and more, opposition to Obamacare is based on voters’ personal experience, and not just on what they have heard or read about the law.
Since Obamacare was enacted in 2010, the Gallup polling organization has asked people whether the law has helped or hurt them personally, or whether they haven’t been affected at all. In the latest survey, most people — 54 percent — said they have not been affected. But 27 percent said they have been affected and hurt, while a smaller group, 16 percent, said they have been helped.
“Since the start of this year, the percentage saying the law has helped them has increased from 10 percent to 16 percent,” Gallup noted, “while the percentage saying it has hurt them has also gone up, and by a similar amount, from 19 percent to 27 percent.”
The trend is pretty clear: more people hurt then helped.
Because the media doesn’t want to cover obamacare since they know it will fan the flames of anger even higher against democrats in the run up to the midterms. The damned GOP is ruled by RINO chickenshits who think like Rove and McCain, who do not have the testicular fortitude to FORCE the failed insanity of obamacare into the forefront of the campaign. All the blather from collectivists about “you can’t repeal obamacare because the people who have obamacare policies would lose them’ is nothing but worthless political agitprop, given the complete lack of concern by these leftists for the over 4 million who will lose their insurance – policies they were told they could keep by the liar-in-chief – this year.
Anything called “Affordable Care Act” that requires taxpayer subsidies for 80% of those who enrolled should be immediately repealed. There was NO justification for this horrible power grab by the left. Based upon the outcomes thus far from obamacare being the exact opposite of what the lying collectivists touted would be the result, obamacare supporters have NO credibility on anything they say. When a law that purports to “help” people by providing “affordable” insurance requires gigantic taxpayer subsidies, has copayments/deductibles that are 3 times higher for individuals and up to 5 times higher for families than their previous insurance plans, and is devised by a despicable scumbag (Ezekiel Emmanuel) who acts more like the embodiment of the Grim Reaper – and was based completely on blatant lies by this pathetic excuse of a president…such a law deserves to be repealed and remembered as the complete sack of filthy political powergrabbing it was.
Anyone who votes for any politician who continues to support the continuation of obamacare is a fool, and will deserve the pending enslavement to the leftist dystopia that will follow.
Obamacare might be a major factor in some people’s minds, but only because they haven’t grasped the fact that repeal simply isn’t going to happen. That they’re confused on that point is understandable. Those who are exploiting the issue are making it a point to keep them confused.
Consider the first assertion in this recent Rasmussen Reports article regarding the results of a recent survey:
Evenly divided? Yes, but not about the likelihood of repeal. Numbers are presented concerning what voters would like to be done. 39% favor repeal. Against that, 55% state they either want to improve certain features of the existing law or leave it as it is. There’s nothing evenly divided regarding their attitude concerning repeal.
A clear majority of voters don’t support repeal, which means it’s highly unlikely to happen. Politicians who are telling their supporters otherwise most likely know better.
@Pete:
Generally, premium increase notices go out between Sept. 1 and Nov. 1. Not this year. Most premium increases are being delayed until after the elections in November. Now, do you think that any of the Kool-Aid drinking liberals would bother to ask why? Simple, delayed news is always bad news.
This year, after over 30 years of union/company negotiations that guaranteed AT & T retirees would always have their company paid health insurance, giving up monthly retirement income for that benefit, AT & T retirees are now being forced into purchasing health care insurance. So much for the promises of the union after they touted how good they were in protecting free health care insurance. And affordable? Hardly. Premiums will now run about $300/month with a deductible of $6,700.00 before the insurance company pays one damn dime toward that retiree’s medical care. That’s an out-of-pocket expense of over $10,000/yr before any insurance benefits are paid.
Retirees also lost their Rx plans. Again, they are being forced into the open market, with premiums starting around $38/month and huge deductibles. Vision care insurance? Gone. Dental care insurance? Gone, and off to the open market you go. Oh, and golly gee, most of those retirees are NOT eligible for the subsidies.
And what is “affordable” about the Affordable Care Act for normal middle class people? Not one damn thing. Doctor visits have not gone down in price; lab work has not gone down in price; hospital fees have not gone down in cost and why should they when the cost of running a medical office, a lab or a hospital has increased if for no other reason than the increased cost of their utilities and the health care for their own employees.
It was all a ruse. All intended to eventually force single payer health insurance on the entire nation. UK here we come with all the UKs problems. Seniors being denied health care because Ezekiel Emanuel has determined that your worth is negative because you are now 60+ years old, and beyond your productive years, will become common practice. Being told that you have to furnish the linens for your sick mum in the hospital will become an American norm. Doctors fleeing their medical practices and shuttering their doors, yep, that’s on our horizon. Medical school graduates, with $250K plus of school debt, nope, they are not going to go into private practice. They can’t afford their school debt AND the cost of opening an office. Practioners will age, and diminish.
That’s our future. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Democrats. Thanks, CWA as you pushed for Obamacare in your flyer every month.
@Greg:
Baloney. Here is a story from the leftist Huffpo from August 2014 on the approval rating of obamacare:
http://www.huffpost.com/us/entry/5639192
It shows that 53% of Americans do not like obamacare, while only 37% still support it. This is BEFORE the unconstitutionally delayed employer mandate kicks in. Huffpo, being a leftist website, touts 10 million allegedly uninsured now having insurance, with 86% requiring subsidies from taxpayers to cover premiums. Considering that 8 millions are poised this year to have their plans cancelled (conveniently after the November elections) there is no way anyone can logically consider obamacare to be beneficial.
You can keep wishing that this despicable power grab won’t be repealed all you want. Once the employer mandate kicks in, all hell is going to break loose. Obamacare is not a constitutional amendment. Americans managed to have prohibition overturned against far greater legal hurdles than the repeal of a lie-based law like obamacare. The dems can keep trying to delay the negative impact of obamacare only so long. Eventually this mushy turd legislation will be scraped away once the growing opposition becomes fully aware of the fetid odor of this horrendous power grab.
Lest we’ve forgotten, Obama unilaterally changed ObamaCare law multiple times.
True ObamaCare has not been fully implemented….yet…. and it won’t be fully implemented until after Obama leaves office.
If you paid for your own health insurance you do not benefit from ObamaCare.
It is of value only for those who qualify for a government subsidy.
But the Obama economy continues to reduce employment while shifting the costs of welfare and now healthcare to the remaining, but fewer taxpayers.
As those taxpayers’ taxes go up, the cost of their heath insurance goes up, and the quality of services goes down.
For those who have always taken care of themselves, Obamacare offers nothing.
We should wait until ObamaCare is fully implemented before declaring it successful.
It won’t matter that some Republicans have backed off the ”repeal” talking point.
A majority of voting Americans oppose ObamaCare.
In the main, the Senate, at least, will be more amenable to either forcing Obama to enforce ObamaCare AS WRITTEN or get rid of it.
There are fewer and fewer people pulling the wagon and more and more people sitting in it getting a free ride.