Obamacare Fading As A 2014 Campaign Issue
The Affordable Care Act is playing almost no role in the midterm elections.
After the public relations disaster of the roll out of the Affordable Care Act last October, a situation which wasn’t fully resolved until sometime in December, which was quickly followed by the numerous reports of people who were losing health insurance coverage that they had had for years, seeing their premiums skyrocket, and otherwise running into difficulties even signing up for insurance through the state or federal exchanges. Given all this news, there were many on the right who believed that, once again, Obamacare would be an issue that they could exploit in the upcoming midterms while many Democratic candidates, especially those vulnerable Democratic Senators in red states, shied away from the issue or sought to distance themselves from the President’s health care plan. As the election year has gone on, though, it has become apparent that the President’s health care law is not going to be the issue that either side thought it would be for voters, and that’s causing both of them to change their emphasis:
Though Republicans continue to hammer away at the Affordable Care Act, the health-insurance law is losing some of its punch in the 2014 campaign.
Polls show that voters don’t see the law as a top concern, and both Democrats and Republicans say the election will turn on a range of issues.
That outlook is causing both parties to adjust. While some Republicans had billed the election as a referendum on the health law, the GOP is now delivering a broader indictment of what the party describes as the Obama administration’s failures. Some Democrats are cautiously stepping out to defend the law, highlighting its most popular provisions while suggesting fixes.
“Obamacare is part of the mix, but it is nowhere near the sole focus of our campaigns,” said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “Obamacare has come to symbolize government overreach, Obama’s liberal values and poor policy judgment.”
White House officials think otherwise. After the government reported Monday that the number of uninsured dropped by 3.8 million in early 2014, during the enrollment period for the health law, two officials said in a blog post that “the Affordable Care Act is working and well on its way to ensuring that all Americans have access to high-quality, affordable health care.”
The health law remains unpopular, surveys show, but polling also suggests it isn’t driving voters’ decision-making. Just 3% of the most enthusiastic voters cited the law as the reason for their eagerness to vote, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll this month that found the economy was the top concern.
(…)
“We still capture ads attacking Obamacare just about every day of the week, but there are lots of issues being focused on now,” said Elizabeth Wilner, who tracks campaign ads as vice president of Kantar Media Ad Intelligence. “Republicans were trying to make the election a referendum on the president, and a health-care law with his name on it was a perfect vehicle to do that. But now they are finding other vehicles.”
She said other issues on the airwaves now include veterans’ health care, Washington gridlock and government spending. Immigration also flared up this summer, as Republicans seized on a surge of illegal child migrants to argue that Democratic policies were failing.
To be sure, the health law is still a GOP rallying cry. Last week, House Republicans held a vote on a bill allowing Americans to keep their health plans, an effort to keep the issue in the news. And TV ads attacking Democratic incumbents who voted for the law continue. Last week in Virginia, Republican Ed Gillespie unveiled a spot attacking Sen. Mark Warner, his Democratic opponent, for helping to pass a law “denying families the insurance and doctors we trust.”
Still, the debate is shifting. For a long time, the issue was so politically toxic that Democrats avoided the subject. Now a handful of House and Senate candidates are promoting the law, albeit gingerly. They focus on popular provisions such as bans on insurers denying coverage to people who already are sick or charging women more than men.
(…)
Two Democratic Senate candidates, incumbent Mark Pryor in Arkansas and Natalie Tennant in West Virginia, are trying to defuse the political debate over the law with personal stories. Mr. Pryor’s ad features his father, David, a popular former senator, talking about his son’s cancer diagnosis. “Mark’s insurance company didn’t want to pay for the treatment that ultimately saved his life,” David Pryor says. Mark Pryor then explains that this is why he supported the health-care law.
Ms. Tennant’s ad opens with the sound of a heart monitor. “When she was a week old, our daughter Delaney had open heart surgery that saved her life,” she says in the spot. “While friends, family, and folks all across West Virginia prayed with us, the insurance company called her a pre-existing condition.”
To no small degree, the fact that the PPACA has faded as a campaign issue is likely due to the fact that, while the law’s initial rollout and inaugural signup period were indeed disastrous, there has been very little bad news, in fact very little news at all, about the law since open enrollment ended in March. There have been reports here and there about the possibility of increased premiums in the future, of course, and as the Journal notes in the linked article, it’s possible that the law may re-enter the news in October when open enrollment begins again and we start dealing with the issue of employers trying to sign up for approved plans. For the most part, though, the PPACA has largely faded from public attention while other issues have arisen in the news. Additionally, the Administration has done a fairly decent job of highlighting what they believe the positive aspects of the law are, including what seems to be small reductions in both the number of uninsured and signs that health care costs might be going down, although it’s far too early to say with any certainty whether either of these will be lasting phenomena. Regardless of whether that’s the case or not, though, there are as much “good” news about the PPACA out there for Democrats to point to as there is “bad” news for Republicans to point to so, in some sense, it ends up becoming a wash and neither party can really benefit from the issue.
More important than how well the law is doing right now, though, is the simple fact that it doesn’t appear to be a very high priority for the voters that are likely to decide the close elections this year. Clearly, it’s an issue that will motivate base issues in both party, especially in the GOP, to come to the polls, but when you look at polling around the country it becomes clear rather quickly that voters don’t consider the health care law to be a high priority. This isn’t entirely surprising. Even back in 2010, when Republicans rode a Tea Party wave to victory, exit polling indicated that health care was seen as the most important issue by just 18% of voters. Additionally, voters that year were nearly equally divided on whether the PPACA should be repealed (48%) or whether it should be expanded or left as it is (47%). As it has been in past elections, the most important issue for voters that year was the economy, and that’s likely to be true this year as well. To be sure, polling still shows that the law is unpopular, but as was the case in 2010 and 2012, there’s simply no evidence that it is going to play a significant role in voters choices at the polls this year.
The Tea Party was never really about Obama Care but about a black man in the White House. The only thing that has changed is that many of those old angry white people have died – my own parents among them.
This was all predictable. I know, because I predicted it, usually over at Glittering Eye, but occasionally here.
I have said from the start that all the details people were screaming about were far less important than one central fact: health insurance was placed in the federal government’s in-basket. Once it became a federal matter people would inevitably move from opposing Obamacare’s existence to grudgingly accepting it, to treasuring it in both parties. We’re not to the treasuring part yet, but we are on our way.
Where we are now is that of the ten billion apocalyptic predictions by the law’s critics, zero have actually occurred. Despite sabotage at the state level, it’s working, and it’s working just about how the administration said it would.
Somewhat early days still, but right now the score is Obamacare 1, Critics bupkis.
My firm prediction: within another four years, the Republicans are going to demand everyone stop calling it “Obamacare” and insist on just calling it the ACA.
And four years after that, Republicans will be running on a platform of protecting the ACA from the Democrats….
Smooth Jazz bait.
Leapin’ lizards…there has been lot’s of news…almost all of it good; the uninsured at record lows…premiums dropping…smaller fiscal costs to the Government…the complete failure of Republicans to produce their long-promised alternative.
Your acute ODS simply prevents you from acknowledging that the train never wrecked…in spite of all your hopes and dreams to the contrary.
Now…cue the wing-nuts making fact-less and false arguments to the contrary…in 3, 2, 1….
@Rafer Janders:
Right…soon the Heritage Foundation will be jumping up and down yelling…
Like in all things, when the sky doesn’t fall as predicted, mankind moves on. The problem with being a naysayer is you kinda need to be right at some point lest you get tagged as crying wolf. Many predictions were so outlandish, so apocalyptic in tone that when they don’t come true, a general sense of apathy kicks in. Nobody cares since there’s no bad news, meaning they don’t really care if there happens to be good news.
They just…. don’t care. Oh they have opinions. Don’t get them started on that there Obamacare! But actual actionable interest? Not so much. If go to a demolition derby and everyone’s driving around in neat orderly circles, you’re so bored you miss the mechanics running around making repairs. You’re there for the crashes, damnit – you were promised destruction and instead you get business as usual. Do you go back to such a derby or do you move on to other interests? You complain it sucks to your friends but that’s about it.
Essentially all of the negative predictions have failed to materialize. We have yet to be sure that the positives are for real and will stick. I am moderately optimistic. The emphasis on maintaining quality, not just cutting costs or increasing access, is new in my experience (over 40 years in medicine in some capacity). However, if results remain positive, it is the next round of reform that will determine its ultimate success.
Steve
@C. Clavin: We’re about ten years from “Keep the government’s hands off my exchange insurance!!”
Actually @C. Clavin: there’s always a Republican alternative health care proposal of some sort on the table. Well, never really on the table, but sort of in a vague cloud around the table somewhere. Jonathan Chait did a cute bit about the Heritage Uncertainty Principle
An article in a nearby paper was about small business owners’ problems with the requirements. They would like to hire more employees, but then would have to provide health benefits.and they can’t afford that.
Some doctors are complaining about the data and information that is required. They are saying this is time consuming and they have less time to spend talking to patients because they are at the keyboard of a laptop, entering reams of personal information. I have seen this first hand and everyone is complaining about the longer waits. One local doctor has had it and has gone to cash pay only. His business is booming. People can deduct it from their taxes or file it themselves. Now that sounds like an idea. A relative went to the er a while back for an ankle sprain. Cost $1200 for 2 xrays, a brace (same thing at the local pharmacy for $20), and the doctor to read the xray and say it wasn’t broken (3 minutes). If she had gone to a family doctor it would have been $300 tops. Of course she could hire a lawyer, sue the bike company for not having a seat belt and air bag! That is what some people would do.
I went in the hospital a few years ago and came out owing around $3000 after deductibles and co-pay. They agreed to $30 a month. After a year I offered $1000 cash and they took it. Do not agree to their first amount. Those figures are just like the sticker price on a car: not reality. Offer them a figure and tell them that is all you can afford. They usually will take it.
Sure it’s working fine now but just you wait till next year! That’s when it’s really going to hit the fan!
How long before the above gets posted? I’d give it another 30 minutes.
@beth: I expect their response will be more along the lines of denial. The positive stories are all fabricated by lamestreamlibrulmedia. Doug’s link, for instance, is to those well known socialist Obamabots at the WSJ.
@Tyrell:
I imagine, as with most stories like this, when examined closer it’s either a simple misunderstanding…or complete bunk.
Of course, absent pertinent facts, we cannot know.
We do know that myriad similar stories have been put out there…only to be immediately debunked by…you know…the facts.
Thanks to the success of ACA, it has moved as an issue to not hurting the Democrats any longer, although as yet it isn’t helping. In 2016, when Obama is gone and the Democratic presidential nominee becomes white again, it will begin helping (A lot of anti ACA feeling is reflexive racism against the black guy in the White House).
There is no doubt too that the ACA IS a success, despite Doug’s refusal to give credit there. The news has been consistently good over the past few months [ which is when Doug virtually stopped posting and tweeting about the ACA:-)].
The Democrats’ problem here is that the ACA isn’t helping them out in the red states this year. What’s needed is a couple of good economic forecasts. That’ll turn around the Presidential approval ratings and lift Senate Democratic boats. Another Republican debt ceiling debacle would also help, but it looks like the Republicans won’t be helping the Democrats this year (though I remain hopeful).
It was always clear that the vast majority of the people polled who gave a negative reaction to the ACA were partisans who were NEVER going to be using/affected by the law. They simply hated it because it was implemented by a Democrat/black man/Obama.
This isn’t a surprise, ObamaCare was always going to end up like most Federal programs, criticized by the masses………but something we really don’t want to actively get rid off.
@Tyrell:
Now see, this bugs me. I have absolutely no idea why people compare their doctor to the ER. The purpose of a ER is 24hr emergency care – the purpose of your doctor is regular maintenance and first-line detection/diagnosis. If you take your car for regular tune-ups, it’s a lower price then taking it a collision shop after an accident. It’s two different types of needs. There is supposed to be an urgency that dictates ER care, something that can’t wait for a doctor’s visit. Does the doctor have an xray machine in house? Does the doctor keep a pantry of various different medical wraps or devices on hand? You are paying for the immediacy of need and for not having to wait on your doctor’s schedule or go to multiple locations for items/services. Of course it’s going to cost more – that’s just simple supply and demand. Just because it applies to your body and not your car doesn’t negate the economic principle.
Do hospitals charge too much? Personally, I think hell yes but that’s not the issue here. People seem to think that going to the ER is just a doctor’s visit on more friendly hours and one-stop shopping when really it’s engaging a complex service designed to deal with a crisis. Nitpicking and comparing isn’t going to fix the issue when the issue is people having the wrong expectations of a system.
@Tyrell: Tyrell, most of what you are talking about is insurance company stuff (i.e., massive paperwork and justifying everything), combined with switching over to electronic records, where places seem to make the doctor do all of the manual entry.
@Tyrell:
The usual crapola we’ve been hearing from Fox News, none of which ever turns out to be true.
But let’s pretend it is true. Why can’t this small business of yours afford to provide health insurance? I mean, they’re a business in competition with other businesses, all of which have the same problem of needing to pay for health insurance. Right? It’s a cost, like rent, or supplies. So if this mythical business is real, and it cannot do what its competitors do, it’s because the business is mis-managed. That’s not the government’s fault.
@C. Clavin: Nah, this is really the one of the few non-imaginary structural flaws of the ACA: due to the 50 employee cutoff of the employer mandate, the marginal value of the 51st employee for a 50 employee business is now sharply higher. Now, people who have looked into this found no statistically significant impact of that on employment yet, but I’d be open to amending/abolishing the employer mandate, simply because we should be working to loosen, not to enhance, the employment/health insurance nexus.
Of course, we would need to think of a replacement mechanism that a) provides for the lost income from the employer mandate and b) resolves the free rider issues of corporations dumping employers to exchanges without raising their wages that would surely arise in absence of the mandate, but in a sane political environment some kind of deal could be cut…
As for the rest of @Tyrell’s tyrade: next time you are in the mood of bartering chickens for medical care, or whatever that is you are advocating, please ponder how will you feel if you had to negotiate a medical bill of say, $100,000. Let’s say you reduced it to $80,000. What is the meaning of this in practical terms? In both cases, you are basically doomed for penury.
@humanoid.panda:
Maybe, maybe not. I can’t imagine an employer needing employees and not hiring them because of this. The whole “…would like to hire more employees..” thing is what sets off red flags for me. Do you need employees or don’t you? And does the increased revenue that demand represents offset the cost of insurance benefits minus the available tax breaks and the employee contributions? It’ simple math. We see the same nonsense from Republicans about taxes. If we give a tax cut then companies will hire more workers. No. They won’t. No one hires anyone without a demand for that employee. And as Reynolds so succinctly points out above…
I mean….I get the 51st employee thing…but how many instances of that are there, really?
@humanoid.panda:
What’s so lovely about this is that Republicans have now been captured by the logic of Obamacare. They’ll eventually accept the obvious fact that Obamacare needs some adjustments. In the process they will inevitably strengthen Obamacare. They won’t mean to, but they will, because to tweak is to accept.
They are right at that moment when they feel the pressure plate and hear the spring and the jaws of the trap are just about to bite into tender flesh, and there is no realistic way for them to get their leg out in time. So we are at that frozen, deer-in-the-headlights phase when Republicans suddenly can’t think of what to say about Obamacare.
So, next up: the tweaking begins, and the GOP starts by huffing and raging, then eventually they present Obamacare Plus and give themselves credit for something that’s even more government than it is already.
Let’s recap, shall we? The GOP’s issues are. . . Um. . . Yeah. Nothin’. Not health care, not teh gays, not immigration, not taxes, not the deficit. They’re running on white panic and gerrymandering. They can’t even run on jobs because nothing in their ideology allows them to do anything about jobs. Their core goal now is to make sure fewer Americans vote. That’s what they’ve got: keeping black people away from the polls. That’s what’s become of the Party of Lincoln.
@C. Clavin: As I said, there is still no evidence for the emloyment effect being measurable, but unlike other Republican complaints about the law, they at least have merit on the level of economic theory: the cost of adding that 51st employee really had risen due to the law. For this reason, and because I think we should move away from employer provided insurance, I’d be open to a deal where the employer mandate is repealed in exchange for, say, fixing the bug that calculates insurance affordability on the basis of the costs of individual , not family, insurance package (you are eligible for subsidies if your employer provided insurance costs more than 9.8% of your paycheck; however, if you buy insurance for your wife and kids via your employer and the total family costs exceed 9.8% , you are not eligible for subsidies. This is a real and painful problem that Republicans and media critics of the law failed to highlight for some mysterious reason).
@michael reynolds: On that I agree, but I think republicans are more likely to follow the Paul Ryan path: stop opposing the ACA as a concept, agree we should all have subsidies and so forth, but attempt subversion in the guise of reform. For example, they might offer the “more consumer choice act of 2020” that will allow selling junk insurance on the exchanges, or screw with subsidy calculations, or offer to transfer medicare patients to the exchanges, and so forth.
@C. Clavin:
Yeah, this is a common GOP trope no matter what program you’re talking about. Grab random failing small business and say, “See? It’s that damned EPA or Obamacare or FCC or patent office.”
And then you look around and see ten other businesses doing fine under the identical conditions.
So long as everyone is on the same field, with the same rules, the problems of any one team belong to that team, not to the game. Don’t tell me the reason you can’t score more touchdowns is because the field is 100 yards long.
@humanoid.panda:
Won’t work. Because by then there are constituencies that will defend their turf and their benefits. It’ll be like trying to subvert Social Security, which Mr. Bush tried, (privatization) only to have it shoved right back in his face with such force that he not only caved, he ran off and wildly expanded Medicare to compensate.
@michael reynolds: Not saying that it will work, I am saying that this will be their game plan. Fact is that even after the Social Security fiasco, the Ryan Plan became the GOP game plan for Medicare, and I’d wager good money that if/when they get all three houses of Congress, they will go for Social Security again.
@michael reynolds:
This logic is like arguing that unemployment isn’t a problem because most other people still found jobs. Just because some, or even most, people haven’t been affected by an issue doesn’t mean the ones who have are making it up.
@Stormy Dragon:
There’s some truth to that. In a capitalist society the individual worker is in effect a business, and he has to compete against others. That’s how the system is built. But I always thought you were a capitalist yourself, no? Are you critiquing the free market system?
@Tyrell:
Some of them are saying it, but is it true? Only if they are doing it terribly inefficiently. If the doctor has a laptop or tablet in the room with the patient a couple of taps here and there where they would have made notes on a paper chart has them spending about the same amount of time looking down. Other than that a secretary doing some data entry when the doctor or practice first sees the patient is the only added time cost. I’ve been with Kaiser or out of the country for most of the last 15 years and there have been computers in all of the exam rooms for at least the past 10. The nurse or doctor enters some data on the computer, can look up records when needed and as I’m leaving my prescription or next meeting info is printing out for me to take with. I can also access my records and get my test results from my computer or phone whenever I want them. This is a good change, not a bad one.
@Tyrell
So you are unhappy that medical record keeping is being dragged into the 21st century?
As a Kaiser member, I can manage my health care online. It’s a good thing. I can email my doctor, so I don’t have to burn a few hours and a copay to ask a simple question. Kaiser has been a leader in this area, everyone else is catching up, and yes there is some pain associated with this transition. That being said, it is absolutely worth doing.
Here in Colorado, the Republican Conservative TV ads are still slamming Obamacare.
From what I have read, this is one of the few areas where this is still being touted as an issue.
However, I think that this is a bit of a case of the rural vs. urban — with those hoping to rile the folk in the hinterlands to the polls.
Of course, my opinion is that the ads will likely misfire. (Surprisingly, Obamacare is helping the po white folk as well.)
We’ll see soon enough.
@anjin-san:
To be fair, so are certain medical practitioners. Many older individuals who were pre-Internet do not like the whole data-entry process. My own mother quit a 30+ nursing career instead of learning how to use a computer for her job – in her own words “If I wanted to type all day, I’d have been a secretary!” Personally, I don’t understand what the fuss is – you still have to record all the information regardless of input type. However, if you are not a fast typer, if your company uses crappy non- user friendly software, if you are just not a tech savvy person then digital medical records are a special type of hell. Business is like evolution: change or die, self-selecting for the most fit in a new environment.
Again, this is user error, not a fault in ACA. They’re going to have to upgrade eventually or bow out of a changing world. This has been a long time coming.
@michael reynolds:
There’s a distinction between recognizing the negatives of a particular policy and arguing that the positives are big enough that it’s worth the negatives and denying that the negatives exist and that anyone claiming there are negatives must be making it up purely for political purposes.
As to whether I’m a capitalist, frankly I can’t say as that’s one of those words that doesn’t seem to have any sort of normative definition these days. I’d describe myself as pro-market as opposed to pro-business.
@Stormy Dragon:
The negatives of capitalism are the positives: it weeds out the weak, just like evolution. Thus it creates efficiencies, which in theory at least result in more good for more people. Obamacare is now a market reality with which businesses — all of them — must cope.
That said, anyone who says, “I have 50 employees and I really need a 51st but I can’t because of Obamacare,” is probably lying. It may put some strain on them, it may be a pain in the ass, but the guy who is already employing 52 people would just say, “Welcome to reality, pal.”
Look, it’s a drag that I have to pay payroll withholding if I hire someone. But if I tell you that I’m not hiring you because of SS and Medicare, I’m lying – I’ve got other reasons, bigger reasons. And I’m not crying about a government that places the same burdens on me as it does on all my competitors.
What business has a right to expect is a level playing field. For a long time now there’s been an advantage to the employer who treats employees like disposable objects. Companies that treated employees well were at a comparative disadvantage. The bad companies shunted their costs (health care) off onto taxpayers who got stuck with the tab, while responsible companies paid their own way. Obamacare rights that wrong and creates a level field. If a given company still insists it needs to dump all its stuff onto the taxpayer so it can have an edge over a better-run company, too bad.
Now, can we tweak details like this? Sure. Just as soon as Republicans grow up and start doing the jobs they were elected to do.
@Tyrell: It’s like having our own miniature Paul Harvey…
@Nikki: Racist asshole
@bandit:
Oh shut up, we all know what you are, you don’t have to remind us.
@michael reynolds:
Yeah…but he licks his own a-hole…so he has that going for himself.
@michael reynolds: Let’s face it, if you own a company that has at least 50 employees and you don’t offer some kind of health plan then you are an a-hole.