This Is Why Obamacare Is ‘Unpopular’
“The law remains unpopular, even as it succeeds. A big part of this has to do with the central core fact of Obamacare, that it was designed and conceived of to disturb as little of the existing insurance market as possible. That was how they got it passed. But the flip side of that is, for now, that it’s actually only helping a relatively small percentage of the population, even as the entire population has to endure an unending barrage of Republican rhetoric, demonizing the law.”
The most glaring problem with all of this is…READ MORE
Copyright 2014 Liberaland
By: Tommy Christopher
Tommy Christopher is The Daily Banter's White House Correspondent and Political Analyst. He's been a political reporter and liberal commentator since 2007, and has covered the White House since the beginning of the Obama administration, first for PoliticsDaily, and then for Mediaite. Christopher is a frequent guest on a variety of television, radio, and online programs, and was the villain in the documentaries The Audacity of Democracy and Hating Breitbart. He's also That Guy Who Live-Tweeted His Own Heart Attack, and the only person to have ever received public apologies from both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
46 responses to This Is Why Obamacare Is ‘Unpopular’
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R.J. Carter November 10th, 2014 at 15:59
Well, that, and statements like those from Jonathan Gruber who is thankful for the “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” over the “tortured” way the law was written to keep the CBO from scoring things as a tax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G790p0LcgbI
OldLefty November 10th, 2014 at 16:11
First off, this is useless if you don’t have the entire discussion or know where and to whom he is saying this.
I noticed that no right wing media who report this gives the source so that you can hear the entire thing.
He is correct. The mandate is not a tax, it should not have been scored as a tax, and healthy people have been paying for unhealthy people for decades.
Everything he, (in whatever context), is true of every law, Medicare Part D more than any.
arc99 November 10th, 2014 at 16:19
It’s the same old recipe as with “you did not build that” or “what difference does it make”.
1. Take a single sentence completely out of context
2. Fabricate a fairy tale to suit the political objective
3. Create a list of talking points based on the fairy tale
4. Distribute the talking points to right wing media
5. Rinse
6. Repeat
I suggest right wingers go and talk to people who are no longer prevented from securing health insurance due to pre existing conditions, or people who needed to keep their adult children on their policy, or people who never had insurance before.
Let us have a polling sample consisting only of people who actually know firsthand what the law does, instead of people who think death panels are real, or are not sure if Hawaii is a state, or who ask people like me who already have good insurance why I am not signing up for Obamacare.
The fact of the matter is that I am one of those people who is dissatisfied with the law. It did not go far enough. In a futile attempt at compromise, the President took the public option off the table. It was an early sign that the only thing to be accomplished by compromising with the GOP is a bad bill that their right wing base will condemn anyway.
OldLefty November 10th, 2014 at 16:27
What I fine fascinating is that EVERY month, Kaiser does that same polling;
The July poll finds that fewer than four in ten Americans (37 percent) are aware that people who got new
health insurance under the ACA had a choice between private health plans,
while about a quarter (26 percent) think the newly insured were
enrolled in a single government plan and about four in ten (38 percent)
say they don’t know enough to answer the question.
53 percent who say they saw any political ads about the law in the past month, more than twice as many say the ads they saw were mostly in opposition to the law rather than mostly in support of it (19 percent versus 7 percent).
And….”To date, most Americans have been personally unaffected by the new health care law,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.From Kaiser; most Americans
continue to report no personal experience with the law to date. Add that
to; Most people get info from least trusted sources.
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b26169e2019aff4d1b37970d-pi
So, basically,
1) People disapprove of “Obamacare”
2) People know nothing about “Obamacare”
3) People don’t want the law repealed.
R.J. Carter November 10th, 2014 at 16:39
2013. Annual Health Economists Conference.
Full one-hour video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHihDa_VPWw
OldLefty November 10th, 2014 at 17:41
Thank you.
I just listened to it as I was making dinner.
I will suggest it to anyone trying to use it as some kind of a gotcha.
What is the problem?
What do the carnival barkers think he is saying in the 53 seconds they show?
R.J. Carter November 10th, 2014 at 17:55
They think (and I haven’t seen evidence to the contrary) that he’s admitting that part of the writing process was to put it out in such a way as that it would (a) pass the CBO and (b) pass the voting public because of a lack of transparency in the bill. He seems to be celebrating this fact, because it got the bill passed, and he’d rather have the bill than transparency.
OldLefty November 10th, 2014 at 18:39
It was always going to pass the CBO.
They wanted a tax, not a penalty. (Contrary to Roberts, many don’t call it a tax).
That’s what they say about EVERY bill.
That’s why the AUMF passed, (and that was a lie);
That’s why they threatened to fire the Medicare actuary if he went public with the cost.
What do you think they were trying to hide here?
Wayout November 10th, 2014 at 21:52
But not to the extent that the law mandates. And the subsidies, the lifeblood of this monstrosity. They had to lie about it and offer bribes to get it passed. And the President, lying about savings and keeping your doctor. Period. Most reprehensible. But this is part and parcel of liberalism, forcing people to participate in it’s endless schemes.
OldLefty November 11th, 2014 at 06:27
But not to the extent that the law mandates. And the subsidies, the lifeblood of this monstrosity.
________
You have first to show that you know what is the “monstrosity” and why it is a drop in the bucket compared to the monstrosity of the cost shifting that has been going on with the rapidly growing ranks of the uninsured over the last few decades.
“They had to lie about it and offer bribes to get it passed
______
Like EVERY law since the founding of the Republic? (the 2nd amendment was a bribe to the slave states).
You have not identified a “lie”.
Did you follow the passing of Medicare Part D?
The ethics Committee that concluded that DeLay had told Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) he would endorse the congressional bid of Smith’s son if the congressman gave GOP leaders a much-needed vote in a contentious pre-dawn roll call on Nov. 22.
The White House told Congress the cost would not exceed $400 billion.When Medicare actuary Richard Foster sought to present the true price tag to Congress in late 2003, then agency chief Thomas Scully threatened to fire him.
The GAO ultimately concluded that the Bush administration “illegally withheld data from Congress on the cost of the new Medicare law” and that Scully “should repay seven months of his salary to the government.” Today, Thomas Scully “now works for a law firm and a private investment firm, has registered as a lobbyist for Abbott
Laboratories, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Caremark Rx and other health care
companies.”)
It was submitted to the House floor on a Wednesday and voted on by the House at 2:30 AM the following Friday – 2 days later, illegally holding the vote open for 3 hours.
Either you didn’t know or you didn’t care.
Before you talk about “. But this is part and parcel of liberalism, forcing people to participate in it’s endless schemes.”, you need to step out of the echo chamber and look at the forcing of people to participate in it’s endless schemes by conservatives, including that of EMTALA, (signed by Reagan) that forces health care providers to participate in the endless scheme of being forced to treat people who can not pay, thus shifting the costs onto the uninsured.
Meanwhile you guys demonstrate time and again how And….”To date, most
Americans have been personally unaffected by the new health care law,”
said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.From Kaiser; most Americans
continue to report no personal experience with the law to date. Add that
to; Most people get info from least trusted sources.
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b26169e2019aff4d1b37970d-pi
tracey marie November 10th, 2014 at 16:34
still pushing opinion of one man as fact. lol, pathetic
R.J. Carter November 10th, 2014 at 16:36
You mean Gruber? The guy who helped write the bill? Why would he know anything about how the bill was written?
tracey marie November 10th, 2014 at 16:42
one mans opinion, taken out of context and circulated ad nauseum. I thought you were better then this, I was wrong
R.J. Carter November 10th, 2014 at 16:45
Well, that wouldn’t be the first time, if comment history is any judge.
Anomaly 100 November 10th, 2014 at 17:07
Personally, I like hearing a Republican’s view point on the comment threads. At least R.J. does so in a manner that opens the door to a healthy discussion.
tracey marie November 10th, 2014 at 18:10
True, I am aggressive but I do not dismiss RJ or others opinions on everything. Hell I agree with RJ and spirit quite often and upvote to show my agreement.
Anomaly 100 November 10th, 2014 at 18:20
I ignore a lot of Republican comments here, but that’s largely because they’re trolly (Example: RedEyeRobot).
But otherwise, I enjoy reading about their opinions.
tracey marie November 10th, 2014 at 19:00
I really do enjoy RJ’s comments…but do not tell him
Anomaly 100 November 10th, 2014 at 19:24
I’m not telling him a thing. He can’t read our secret messages, right?
tracey marie November 10th, 2014 at 19:26
wink wink
Wayout November 10th, 2014 at 21:48
Very well said RJ. But in reality, redoing the nations health care industry was low on the priorities of the average American back then. It was only liberals who really wanted this with their longstanding dream of government healthcare. Of course they who foisted this upon us will not be subject to it themselves.
R.J. Carter November 10th, 2014 at 16:59
Well, that, and statements like those from Jonathan Gruber who is thankful for the “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” over the “tortured” way the law was written to keep the CBO from scoring things as a tax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G790p0LcgbI
OldLefty November 10th, 2014 at 17:11
First off, this is useless if you don’t have the entire discussion or know where and to whom he is saying this.
I noticed that no right wing media who report this gives the source so that you can hear the entire thing.
He is correct. The mandate is not a tax, it should not have been scored as a tax, and healthy people have been paying for unhealthy people for decades.
Everything he, (in whatever context), is true of every law, Medicare Part D more than any.
arc99 November 10th, 2014 at 17:19
It’s the same old recipe as with “you did not build that” or “what difference does it make”.
1. Take a single sentence completely out of context
2. Fabricate a fairy tale to suit the political objective
3. Create a list of talking points based on the fairy tale
4. Distribute the talking points to right wing media
5. Rinse
6. Repeat
I suggest right wingers go and talk to people who are no longer prevented from securing health insurance due to pre existing conditions, or people who needed to keep their adult children on their policy, or people who never had insurance before.
Let us have a polling sample consisting only of people who actually know firsthand what the law does, instead of people who think death panels are real, or are not sure if Hawaii is a state, or who ask people like me who already have good insurance why I am not signing up for Obamacare.
The fact of the matter is that I am one of those people who is dissatisfied with the law. It did not go far enough. In a futile attempt at compromise, the President took the public option off the table. It was an early sign that the only thing to be accomplished by compromising with the GOP is a bad bill that their right wing base will condemn anyway.
OldLefty November 10th, 2014 at 17:27
What I fine fascinating is that EVERY month, Kaiser does that same polling;
The July poll finds that fewer than four in ten Americans (37 percent) are aware that people who got new
health insurance under the ACA had a choice between private health plans,
while about a quarter (26 percent) think the newly insured were
enrolled in a single government plan and about four in ten (38 percent)
say they don’t know enough to answer the question.
53 percent who say they saw any political ads about the law in the past month, more than twice as many say the ads they saw were mostly in opposition to the law rather than mostly in support of it (19 percent versus 7 percent).
And….”To date, most Americans have been personally unaffected by the new health care law,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.From Kaiser; most Americans
continue to report no personal experience with the law to date. Add that
to; Most people get info from least trusted sources.
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b26169e2019aff4d1b37970d-pi
So, basically,
1) People disapprove of “Obamacare”
2) People know nothing about “Obamacare”
3) People don’t want the law repealed.
R.J. Carter November 10th, 2014 at 17:39
2013. Annual Health Economists Conference.
Full one-hour video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHihDa_VPWw
OldLefty November 10th, 2014 at 18:41
Thank you.
I just listened to it as I was making dinner.
I will suggest it to anyone trying to use it as some kind of a gotcha.
What is the problem?
What do the carnival barkers think he is saying in the 53 seconds they show?
R.J. Carter November 10th, 2014 at 18:55
They think (and I haven’t seen evidence to the contrary) that he’s admitting that part of the writing process was to put it out in such a way as that it would (a) pass the CBO and (b) pass the voting public because of a lack of transparency in the bill. He seems to be celebrating this fact, because it got the bill passed, and he’d rather have the bill than transparency.
OldLefty November 10th, 2014 at 19:39
It was always going to pass the CBO.
They wanted a tax, not a penalty. (Contrary to Roberts, many don’t call it a tax).
That’s what they say about EVERY bill.
That’s why the AUMF passed, (and that was a lie);
That’s why they threatened to fire the Medicare actuary if he went public with the cost.
What do you think they were trying to hide here?
Wayout November 10th, 2014 at 22:52
But not to the extent that the law mandates. And the subsidies, the lifeblood of this monstrosity. They had to lie about it and offer bribes to get it passed. And the President, lying about savings and keeping your doctor. Period. Most reprehensible. But this is part and parcel of liberalism, forcing people to participate in it’s endless schemes.
OldLefty November 11th, 2014 at 07:27
But not to the extent that the law mandates. And the subsidies, the lifeblood of this monstrosity.
________
You have first to show that you know what is the “monstrosity” and why it is a drop in the bucket compared to the monstrosity of the cost shifting that has been going on with the rapidly growing ranks of the uninsured over the last few decades.
“They had to lie about it and offer bribes to get it passed
______
Like EVERY law since the founding of the Republic? (the 2nd amendment was a bribe to the slave states).
You have not identified a “lie”.
Did you follow the passing of Medicare Part D?
The ethics Committee that concluded that DeLay had told Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) he would endorse the congressional bid of Smith’s son if the congressman gave GOP leaders a much-needed vote in a contentious pre-dawn roll call on Nov. 22.
The White House told Congress the cost would not exceed $400 billion.When Medicare actuary Richard Foster sought to present the true price tag to Congress in late 2003, then agency chief Thomas Scully threatened to fire him.
The GAO ultimately concluded that the Bush administration “illegally withheld data from Congress on the cost of the new Medicare law” and that Scully “should repay seven months of his salary to the government.” Today, Thomas Scully “now works for a law firm and a private investment firm, has registered as a lobbyist for Abbott
Laboratories, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Caremark Rx and other health care
companies.”)
It was submitted to the House floor on a Wednesday and voted on by the House at 2:30 AM the following Friday – 2 days later, illegally holding the vote open for 3 hours.
Either you didn’t know or you didn’t care.
Before you talk about “. But this is part and parcel of liberalism, forcing people to participate in it’s endless schemes.”, you need to step out of the echo chamber and look at the forcing of people to participate in it’s endless schemes by conservatives, including that of EMTALA, (signed by Reagan) that forces health care providers to participate in the endless scheme of being forced to treat people who can not pay, thus shifting the costs onto the uninsured.
Meanwhile you guys demonstrate time and again how And….”To date, most
Americans have been personally unaffected by the new health care law,”
said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.From Kaiser; most Americans
continue to report no personal experience with the law to date. Add that
to; Most people get info from least trusted sources.
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b26169e2019aff4d1b37970d-pi
tracey marie November 10th, 2014 at 17:34
still pushing opinion of one man as fact. lol, pathetic
R.J. Carter November 10th, 2014 at 17:36
You mean Gruber? The guy who helped write the bill? Why would he know anything about how the bill was written?
tracey marie November 10th, 2014 at 17:42
one mans opinion, taken out of context and circulated ad nauseum. I thought you were better then this, I was wrong
R.J. Carter November 10th, 2014 at 17:45
Well, that wouldn’t be the first time, if comment history is any judge.
Anomaly 100 November 10th, 2014 at 18:07
Personally, I like hearing a Republican’s view point on the comment threads. At least R.J. does so in a manner that opens the door to a healthy discussion.
tracey marie November 10th, 2014 at 19:10
True, I am aggressive but I do not dismiss RJ or others opinions on everything. Hell I agree with RJ and spirit quite often and upvote to show my agreement.
Anomaly 100 November 10th, 2014 at 19:20
I ignore a lot of Republican comments here, but that’s largely because they’re trolly (Example: RedEyeRobot).
But otherwise, I enjoy reading about their opinions.
tracey marie November 10th, 2014 at 20:00
I really do enjoy RJ’s comments…but do not tell him
Anomaly 100 November 10th, 2014 at 20:24
I’m not telling him a thing. He can’t read our secret messages, right?
tracey marie November 10th, 2014 at 20:26
wink wink
Wayout November 10th, 2014 at 22:48
Very well said RJ. But in reality, redoing the nations health care industry was low on the priorities of the average American back then. It was only liberals who really wanted this with their longstanding dream of government healthcare. Of course they who foisted this upon us will not be subject to it themselves.
tiredoftea November 10th, 2014 at 18:04
Further proof of why you don’t abandon your principles to try to gain support from implacable foes.
tiredoftea November 10th, 2014 at 19:04
Further proof of why you don’t abandon your principles to try to gain support from implacable foes.
Tim Coolio November 10th, 2014 at 23:00
Hey neocons, if you are against the ACA because it
requires you to get health insurance, then YOU ARE
THE PROBLEM, you don’t want to buy insurance? fine,
then never use 911 or an emergency room, just curl
up into a ball at home and die quietly, that’s the
GOP plan for your health care access!
Tim Coolio November 11th, 2014 at 00:00
Hey neocons, if you are against the ACA because it
requires you to get health insurance, then YOU ARE
THE PROBLEM, you don’t want to buy insurance? fine,
then never use 911 or an emergency room, just curl
up into a ball at home and die quietly, that’s the
GOP plan for your health care access!