# What is your ongoing opinion of the Affordable Care Act? (Title Edited) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 17, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561 "2013-01-17T23:21:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 93
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1842 "2014-03-31T20:31:14Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It actually is a take or leave it proposition. And according to the latest poll the American people say ‘Take it’. There were no qualifications in this poll question either, just do you support or oppose the law, period. 49% support 48% oppose No explanations or interpretation required. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1843 "2014-03-31T20:33:05Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Oh wow, one poll vs. all the others that show the opposite. Unless something changed in just a day or two, it’s an outlier. Look at those goal posts go! You just asked why the latest good news isn’t moving the needle, (file under things that have happened in the last few days) and almost at the same time you say that, the latest poll comes out showing just what you claim not to be seeing. A moving needle. Why am I not surprised at your reaction? ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1844 "2014-03-31T22:03:49Z")
Sadly, the facts in that poll were not based on opinions… ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1845 "2014-04-01T04:29:25Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > Look at those goal posts go! > > You just asked why the latest good news isn’t moving the needle, (file under things that have happened in the last few days) and almost at the same time you say that, the latest poll comes out showing just what you claim not to be seeing. A moving needle. > > Why am I not surprised at your reaction? So if the next poll shows a reversion back to what the other polls say, will that mean that the needle has moved back? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1846 "2014-04-01T04:30:48Z")
BTW, 80% chance Republicans take the Senate now according to Monkey Cage: > **[Republicans have a better than 80 percent chance of winning the Senate](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/03/31/republicans-have-a-better-than-80-percent-chance-of-winning-the-senate/)** > > So says the new Senate model from the Monkey Cage blog. I’m sure there’s an explanation for this that doesn’t involve the health care law. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1847 "2014-04-01T05:16:26Z")
So it looks like enrollment came in around the 7 million target. What a disaster for the Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1848 "2014-04-01T05:18:49Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > BTW, 80% chance Republicans take the Senate now according to Monkey Cage: > > [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/03/31/republicans-have-a-better-than-80-percent-chance-of-winning-the-senate/](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/03/31/republicans-have-a-better-than-80-percent-chance-of-winning-the-senate/) > > I’m sure there’s an explanation for this that doesn’t involve the health care law. Indeed, and it is in the same article you quoted. > [@](#): > > as in most midterm election years — the playing field is tilted away from the president’s party ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1849 "2014-04-01T05:22:48Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > So it looks like enrollment came in around the 7 million target. What a disaster for the Democrats. It is if a high percentage of those either lost their old insurance or only did it because they thought they had to. By that standard, a renewal of the draft would be a success for Democrats if they had a 20% compliance rate. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1850 "2014-04-01T09:07:10Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It is if a high percentage of those either lost their old insurance or only did it because they thought they had to. > > By that standard, a renewal of the draft would be a success for Democrats if they had a 20% compliance rate. LOL at the continuously shifting goalposts. Very predictable, but still very funny 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1851 "2014-04-01T09:18:13Z")
Nothing like the ultimate goalpost move of promising to pass universal health care and then calling a 15.6% uninsured rate a smashing success. Or of promising that people could keep their insurance if they liked it, then claiming it was substandard when they lost it. That’s moving the goalposts clear out of the country. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1852 "2014-04-01T11:02:59Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Nothing like the ultimate goalpost move of promising to pass universal health care and then calling a 15.6% uninsured rate a smashing success. Or of promising that people could keep their insurance if they liked it, then claiming it was substandard when they lost it. > > That’s moving the goalposts clear out of the country. I think you made this exact post a few months ago, except your percentage was higher. Will you still be making it when it gets down to 10%? 5%? Do you call all laws that haven’t reached their final goals while in their infancy failures, or just this one? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1853 "2014-04-01T11:07:08Z")
WARNING: NON-SNARKY POST TO FOLLOW **adaher** , you root for failure and cherrypick data about the ACA so much it’s not even funny. Why do you insist on calling a law that’s slowly getting more popular, and actually meeting many of it’s early goals, a failure when it only just began? What’s the motivation here? Is it bitterness and desperation because you were so pathetically wrong for the 2012 election that you skedaddled for months afterwards, and you’re clinging desperately to the barest hope of getting something right? Or is it just typical Fox News-style facts-be-damned amateur punditry? Is it really that bad and that harmful for you, personally, if the ACA actually is a mostly positive force in the country? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1854 "2014-04-01T11:29:10Z")
There’s a tidbit of accuracy there and a lot of BS. I admit I root for failure, but it’s your side that’s doing the cherrypicking. Seizing on outlier polls, taking the administration’s self-serving data releases on faith despite insurers saying the administration is full of it, and calling something far short of ACA’s goals a success. At BEST, you can give ACA an incomplete. It’s not even promising in its first year. The majority of the uninsured remain uninsured. Prices are lower than projected only because insurers lowballed. Rates will go up sharply next year, making people even less likely to sign up. Almost everyone now acknowledges the law has to be fixed. When my side says repeal it and your side says, “mend it, don’t end it”, that’s a pretty big concession that it’s falling short. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1855 "2014-04-01T11:33:00Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > There’s a tidbit of accuracy there and a lot of BS. I admit I root for failure, but it’s your side that’s doing the cherrypicking. Seizing on outlier polls, taking the administration’s self-serving data releases on faith despite insurers saying the administration is full of it, and calling something far short of ACA’s goals a success. > > At BEST, you can give ACA an incomplete. It’s not even promising in its first year. The majority of the uninsured remain uninsured. Prices are lower than projected only because insurers lowballed. Rates will go up sharply next year, making people even less likely to sign up. Almost everyone now acknowledges the law has to be fixed. When my side says repeal it and your side says, “mend it, don’t end it”, that’s a pretty big concession that it’s falling short. _Of course_ it’s incomplete! It only just started! And we’ve never said it was perfect – we always wanted to “mend it”. It was no one’s first choice. It’s a flawed law that is, nonetheless, far better for US health care than the system without the law. At least you admit you want it to fail. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1856 "2014-04-01T12:30:58Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I admit I root for failure Let’s explore that a little, shall we? Tell us please \*why \*you want this effort to fail. ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1857 "2014-04-01T14:03:30Z")
Yup, so it looks like that original 7 million enrollee goal was [probably reached after all.](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/31/obamacare-enrollment_n_5066687.html) I bet the Democrats are shitting their pants with such a low number! :dubious: Remember when the original rollout fiasco was being compared to [the death of liberalism?](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-three-burials-of-obamacare.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0) Hahahahahahahahahahaha! ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1858 "2014-04-01T15:03:03Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It is if a high percentage of those either lost their old insurance or only did it because they thought they had to. Already dealt with upthread. > [@adaher](#): > > Nothing like the ultimate goalpost move of promising to pass universal health care and then calling a 15.6% uninsured rate a smashing success. Nobody ever said this was going to be universal health care. I’d recap the last four or five years of health care policy for you, but I think everybody who is interested knows how we got here. Politics involves compromise, and it’s kind of crazy to bash the Democrats for being unable to pass something you’re personally opposed to when part of the reason it didn’t pass is that Republicans were opposed to it. > [@adaher](#): > > I admit I root for failure Oh, I’m shocked, shocked. Didn’t see that one coming. > [@](#): > > It’s not even promising in its first year. Fourth year. And yes, like every major piece of legislation of its kind, it’s required adjustments as time has gone by. On its own it’ll never get health care to everybody, so somewhere down the line something else will be proposed that expands that goal. The ACA is a kludge, but that’s the only way you to make progress. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1859 "2014-04-01T15:46:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Fourth year. And yes, like every major piece of legislation of its kind, it’s required adjustments as time has gone by. On its own it’ll never get health care to everybody, so somewhere down the line something else will be proposed that expands that goal. The ACA is a kludge, but that’s the only way you to make progress. On top of that deserved take down of **adaher** , I have to also add that that kludge is better than many think because it allows some flexibility to the states. As Mediamatters reported (and they were correct) more than a few conservative critics made the point during those early discussions about the law that the ACA was also a Trojan horse for single payer to eventually be adopted. The fact that some states are already using the ACA as a framework to start their own single payer plans is evidence that those right wing pundits were correct for once. IMHO the greed of the health care companies will lead us soon to the discussion about the insane costs of health care. And as a result more states will plug in their own versions of government health plans. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1860 "2014-04-01T16:43:44Z")
[Summary here](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/01/1288844/-Here-s-why-the-Obamacare-unskewers-are-at-best-a-bunch-of-morons?detail=hide) of the LA Times analysis, for those of you: > [@](#): > > According to Hiltzik, there are five big claims: > > 1.New enrollees won’t end up paying their insurance bill: Given that the newest enrollees haven’t even gotten bills yet, the only thing we can go on are payment rates earlier enrollees, and among them, 85-90 percent have paid on time. > > 2.New enrollees already had insurance: There aren’t reliable national statistics on this, but Kentucky and New York are both tracking stats to answer this question. Their findings? In Kentucky, 75 percent of new enrollees were uninsured. In New York it’s 60 percent. > > 3.Too few healthy young people are enrolling, which will cause a death spiral as insurance rates soar: The jury is still out on the number of young enrollees, but even if it stays at previous levels, it won’t have a destabilizing effect on the system—in other words, no death spiral. > > 4.More people were cancelled than enrolled: This is nothing more than a Ted Cruz applause line. No evidence suggests it’s true. In fact, Hiltzik points to a Rand study showing at most 1 million policies were canceled and that insurers retained most of those customers by offering them better, ACA-compliant plans. > > 5.The White House is cooking the books: This claim represents the distilled essence of the unskewers, but it’s not only bogus (see 1-4) it’s also absurd—as Hiltzik points out, the stats coming from states that ran their own exchanges are better than the stats coming from the Federal government. If the Feds were cooking the books, why would their numbers be worse than average? ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/1861 "2014-04-01T16:58:14Z")
Here is the true unskewed data - nicely graphed since numbers are often hard to understand. [http://unskewobamacare.com](http://unskewobamacare.com) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561.md?page=92) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561.md?page=94)