Posted on 04/06/2013 12:12:40 AM PDT by neverdem
President Obama is eager to build public support for his health care overhaul in the few months remaining before its implementation, but waning enthusiasm from Democrats threatens his effort right out of the gate.
Two-thirds of Democrats now believe Obama's health care reforms will either hurt them personally or have no effect on their daily lives, a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows. In comparison, just 27 percent of Democratic respondents said the reforms would help them.
The president has long struggled to convince independent and Republican-leaning voters that his health care blueprint would lower premiums and expand insurance coverage.
However, an inability to convince his own party that the reforms have merit suggests an even bigger problem for the president ahead of the 2014 implementation.
"Obama is trying to make the next election a referendum on Republicans," said Democratic strategist Doug Schoen. "But Obamacare will still be a drag on the Democratic ticket. Democrats supported it because Obama was attached to it, but they still have great skepticism about the real impact of the law."
Some Democrats are wary of the health care reforms because they don't go far enough. Party liberals had wanted a single-payer system run by the government. Others have complained about the repercussions of the law on part-time workers, some of whom have had their work hours cut so their employers could avoid mandates under the new law.
The reservations Democrats express aren't because they lack an understanding of what the reforms will do. Just 6 percent of Democrats polled by Quinnipiac said they didn't know how the reforms would impact them personally.
And analysts said that doubts from liberals represent more than a public relations problem for the president. They could signal difficulties ahead for his signature legislative achievement.
"There are two ways it hurts Obama," said Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. "Democrats won't be as likely to go out and fight for Obama again on this issue, and secondly, if this crashes and burns, they're going to turn on him."
The president insists that critics will ultimately embrace the reforms once they are enacted. But the foundation of the law is built on the premise that most people will enroll in it. If they don't, the participation pool would not be large enough to keep premium costs down, analysts said.
Not surprisingly, Democrats still have a more favorable view of the reforms than Republicans and independents.
Just 3 percent of Republicans and 15 percent of independents believe the president's overhaul will help them personally, the poll shows. Even worse for the White House, 68 percent of self-identified Republicans and more than a third of all independents said the reforms would hurt them personally.
However, Obama continues to paint a rosy picture of how people will benefit from the most comprehensive overhaul to the health care system since Medicare was created in 1965.
During a fundraising swing through California on Thursday, Obama said the reforms are "already helping millions of people and will help millions more when it is fully implemented next year."
bhughes@washingtonexaminer.com
He has no idea what obamacare is. He’s never read any of it. He simply says what’s on the teleprompter. And just because he says it, that don’t make it so.
Plus, he’s told so many lies, in fact everything he has said is a lie, that nobody believes him anymore. However, that still won’t stop people from worshiping him. They’ve been calling people racists who don’t like him so if they admit they don’t like him anymore, it means they’re racists.
Democrats have doubts about Obamacare too
True but democrats are DRONES in the COLLECTIVE.....
They will never go again the BORG Queen..
You know.. (her) whose name should not be mentioned..
Exactly. Don’t let these idiots off the hook. If you see Dems starting to turn, start calling them racists.
They’ve been hiding behind that word simply to avoid debate. Sorry stupid Dem, no opportunity for you to complain. You’re simply a racist!!
I want to know what percent of dems think it will hurt them. The author lumps it in with “will not effect them.”
How can they, if they didn’t bother reading it before they voted for it?
Wait until they find out they are on the same boat as the rest of us to hell.
Americans voted to retain Obamacare in November.
They should shut the heck up and stop complaining! No one forced them to keep it.
I expect the Dems to start blaming the Republicans for Obamacare soon.
I think the Borg “Queen” has the plumbing of a man, but is certainly a “queen”
We’re ALL gonna get what THEY voted for! A-holes!
It's not "health care," folks. It's a national business arrangement.
I was introduced to Osamascare yesterday. I had a nuclear coronary examination. I went on Medicare over five years ago and hadn’t paid “one single dime” in copay since then. The girl caught me as I was leaving and she said I owed $19.78, so I paid in cash, grumbling the whole time. It appears that the president wasn’t lying when he said the implementation of his plan would not cost us “one single dime.” In this case it cost 197 dimes. I’m sure this was just a “bump in the road” and they’ll eventually get these little wrinkles ironed out.
They don’t give a damn about the restrictive and taxing nature of ObamaCare. They live outside the norm, outside the productive edge of this country. They are a part of boozers, users and losers who want nothing more than the hated ‘rich’ to pay their fare in life.
All you have to do is look at the number of permanently unemployed who are content to rape the wealth of this country through welfare programs numbering in scores.
I don’t think it was specifically concocted to enrich insurance companies. It was and is a mechanism to take a crapload of tax, fee, fine and surcharge money out of 17% of this country’s economic engine and divert it to the whim of Obama’s side.
While insurance companies may benefit from this doesn’t make it the reason; they only get whatever boon you think because that’s what it took to buy them off - Just Like AARP, and all the other special interest groups.
Think about it: You now have the Federal government mandating the purchase of insurance coverage by every adult in the U.S. If Ford and GM could get away with it, they'd lobby hard for a Federal mandate to buy a new car every three years.
Oh, bull crap! The insurance companies, like the overwhelming majority of companies in this country, are run by "short-run thinkers" that never look beyond the next quarterly financial report. Insuarnce companies are looking at this as most businesses would - an opportunity to obtain numerous additional members that will generate revenue. The falacy in their thinking is that the revenue portion will come; it may initially, but it will be at the decision approval of the government.
In the meantime, the government will mandate innumerable changes in the regulations, reporting, delivery methods, and other arbitrary bureaucratic nonsense that will cost the industry billions to implement. This of course means that WE will be paying consistently higher and higher rates for our helathcare. More importantly, at some point these short-sighted nimrods are going to be absorbed by the government, where they will be nothing less than a serving arm of the federal goverment. This law was intended for only one thing... destroy private insurance and drive everyone to a single payer system run by the government, which in turn will be used to control them. All of this initial hemming and hawing is just noise... if it is completely implemented, this country dies.
I still disagree. While select insurance providers may have had input, I do not believe they solely wrote the law. It is a collection of every left-wing organization’s pent up redistributive ideologies they’ve had for nigh on half a century. This was already WRITTEN! and added to to fit current circumstances.
It makes no sense at all for the government to provide sweeping windfalls for insurance agencies. They only need let them ‘get their taste’, not the whole damn pie.
This healthcare debacle is the government’s (Obama and Democrat Government) to control nearly 20% of our economy and have its own perpetual little b!tch fund from which to fund all graft, greed, bribes, and pay the bills for the largess they have committed to. Not buying it.
Heck -- medical insurance isn't even "insurance" anymore, given the size and frequency of the claims. It's nothing more than a mechanism for shifting the burden of costs from patients to others.
The insurance industry isn't going to be interested in staying in the business for very long. ObamaCare was a perfect mechanism to prop up their customer base while at the same time laying the groundwork to get them out of the business entirely.
Let them choke on it.
Obama continues to paint a rosy picture.
Roses are red and Obamacare is dead.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.