Every single one of the changes the President has made to ACA has been to get through the next election. Not to make the bill work better. If he actually prioritized making ACA work, he’d have pulled the band-aid off.
A good example is the letting people keep their insurance in many states. While he had to do something to sorta keep his promise, defusing that little political problem created a real policy problem and thus a new political problem that he’s now solving in a way that will create other problems when the policy ends three years from now(just in time to get through the 2016 election).
Delaying the Medicare Advantage Cuts that were due in Oct. 2008.
Delaying when insurance companies had to submit their new premiums(didn’t work, thus the risk corridors change)
Allowing people to keep their plans in some states
Changing the latest Medicare Advantage cuts
Making it so that anyone can get out of the individual mandate this year by claiming hardship(evidence not necessary)
Delaying the employer mandate
That’s just off the top of my head. I’d turn this challenge around on you though. Show me one change to ACA made by the administration that WASN’T politically motivated to just delay pain until after an election.
Look, this jackass is obviously coming at this with his own stupid perspective, but for conservative anti-ACA crusaders, his vision likely resonates as gospel. Seriously, though, I cannot imagine that rampant ACA hatred will last beyond this year’s elections, let alone as another “referendum” in the 2016 POTUS race.
I mean, I know that the idea of wiping Obama’s legacy from the history books makes the rightwing lunatics of this country absolutely crazy with glee, but the general public would not stand for that nonsense.
Beyond that, as proof of my unrelenting nerdiness in terms of ACA issues, I actually went ahead and bought this book the other day, which chronicles from the grassroots perspective the passage of the ACA in 2010. Looking forward to reading it.
During the first open enrollment period, there was only one insurance provider offering Obamacare plans in New Hampshire. When the second open enrollment begins in November, there will be five providers competing for the business of the newly insured, expanding the number of doctors and hospitals in the network.
Obamacare will be a positive campaign issue for New Hampshire Democrats in November.
Not good news for Scott Brown, whose entire campaign platform is “Repeal it all, then restore the parts you people tell me they like (even if it’s all of it)”. The barn jacket and the pickup truck aren’t enough to overcome that.
Affordable Care Act- Still gaining acceptance. Just like Dan Quayle.
Or not:
Still no significant change in the polling. Slightly worse in the last few day, actually, although I’m sure it will revert to the norm. Elvis will of course see that as evidence of a surge of popularity.
Adaher, I don’t how many times we can keep explaining this stuff to you before it finally begins to resonate.
Yes, the ACA remains broadly unpopular; that’s partly due to the administration’s piss-poor job of selling the legislation, but even more due to the GOP’s targeted misinformation and smear campaign over the past five years. Still, the core components of the ACA - aside from the individual mandate - have consistently garnered overwhelming public support, even as much of the populace doesn’t even realize that those same aspects of the law that they support are the exact things that the ACA actually does.
However, if you take into account the percentage of people who support the ACA and combine it with the number of individuals who feel that it doesn’t go far enough to address the problem, then you have a distinct & pronounced majority which is broadly supportive of health reform in general. Even when considering the continued discontent surrounding the ACA writ large, the majority of the population DOES NOT want it to be repealed but rather streamlined and made more efficient.
ACA backlash continues to resonate within the GOP base and amongst the Tea Partiers, but that hatred is a solidly minority position to have.
It is true. That’s what the polling says. The polling also says that most of the country is not that focused on the ACA. A significant majority opposes repeal.
Well, if you think there’s no problem, then we’ll just find out this November. And no, the polling does NOT say there isn’t a problem, unless you define losing the Senate as no problem. Almost all of the expert analysts like Silver, Cook, Rothenburg, Sabato, etc. see those same polls and give the GOP a better than even chance to win the Senate.
I don’t think there’s no problem – there’s definitely a problem for Democrats. Not surprisingly, your political analysis in post #2433 is dead wrong. But it’s not because of the ACA – most of the public has moved on and accepts the ACA.
There was also a 2010. Losing two of the last three elections happens for a reason. And virtually no one thinks the Democrats can actually win the next election, as in win a majority of the votes.
