The
New Republic has the real scoop on the effect of Obamacare on the Democrats' recent loss of a special election in Florida. It was not, as the conventional wisdom suggests, a question of popular revulsion against Obamacare taking down a well-known and well-funded Democrat. The real problem is that Chief Justice Roberts struck a more deadly blow than we knew when he prevented the feds from bullying the states into taking on an expensive expansion of Medicaid. Many voters below 138% of the poverty line now find themselves ineligible both for Medicaid and for subsidized Obamacare exchange policies, which is--you guessed it--the Republicans' fault. So all Democrats have to do is explain this, and reap a zillion grateful votes in November.
You may not have noticed that the President
waffled on another promise this week (who can keep track?), concerning your ability to keep your doctor. What he meant to say, and what we were too dumb to understand, is that you would have to give up your doctor in order to save money on your new, much higher premiums.
3 comments:
It was not, as the conventional wisdom suggests, a question of popular revulsion against Obamacare taking down a well-known and well-funded Democrat.
The "conventional wisdom" I've seen doesn't say this. Jolly didn't only decry Obamacare in and of itself, nor did he only tie Sink to Obamacare as the totality of her sins. Jolly disparaged Obamacare, also, perhaps more so, as an example of why Big Government can't be trusted with this sort of thing, and he tied Sink to Big Government at least as much as he tied her to Obamacare. The Herb Croly magazine piece utterly ignores this small point.
Beyond that, though, the New Republic describes the outcome...inaccurately. The questions so heavily touted by GarinHartYang were loaded to consider only those who supported Obamacare in the first place: who do you trust to fix it?, not who do you trust to fix our health coverage system?
And these two remarks: commentary on the fact that millions of the uninsured aren’t benefiting from the law, because of the blockage of the Medicaid expansion. Why should they tell pollsters they support it? It’s not doing anything for them.
Making matters worse for Democrats is many of these people do not know why the law is not helping them—all they know is that when they go to try to sign up, they are told they are not eligible for subsidized private coverage on the new exchanges....
No, it couldn't possibly be that "they" don't expect Obamacare to help them even were they eligible for subsidies. It couldn't possibly be that "they" aren't so much interested in the subsidies as in being able to do for themselves without government handouts--handouts that their children are being drafted to provide, not for them, but for strangers. No, this puzzlement over the fact that "they" aren't grabbing freebies is just another example of Progressives projecting their own shortcomings on the rest of us.
Eric Hines
"When thine enemy flieth make him a bridge of silver."
I had rather make him a bridge of fagots, and when he is truly committed to the middle of the bridge, light off both ends.
I decline to give him a second chance to run at me.
Eric Hines
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