Unaccustomed as we are to being in the majority of opinion about almost anything, it gives us an almost giddy feeling of being in with the “in crowd” to read the latest polling numbers on Obamacare.
The law has been widely dislike since it was passed, but now a clear majority of the public shares our disdain of it, a substantial plurality hates it with something like our own red-hot passion, and the ill feelings seem to be growing. In two recent polls by well-regarded pollsters Obamacare has reached record levels of unpopularity, and both provided reasons to believe that the law’s numbers will worsen. A surprisingly large number of the respondents who still favor the law are frank enough to admit that they are blissfully ignorant of its effects on their lives, and when the news arrives in the form of a higher bill or a the loss of a long-held and well-regarded policy or a stiff penalty for remaining uninsured they will quickly join the disapproving bandwagon. Throw in the recent dissatisfaction of many of he law’s former champions in the labor movement, academia, and the “arts community,” as well as the fact that the declining numbers are in spite of a multi-million dollar propaganda campaign and a constant outpouring of the president’s supposedly irresistible rhetoric, and Obamacare’s opponents can be forgiven a cocky feeling about ultimately doing away with the damned thing.
That won’t happen until Obamacare’s eponymous president is out of office, even longer if another member of his party succeeds him, perhaps never if the government can get enough people signed up for the law’s generous subsidies and somehow keep them blissfully ignorant of its true costs, and in the meantime there’s plenty of opportunity for the opposition to blow it. Yet another budget-ceiling debate will soon dominate the national news conversation, and some daring Republicans in Congress are threatening to make funding for Obamacare the decisive issue of that already contentious debate even if it means a shutdown of the government for a prolonged period. They’ll be heartened by another recent poll which reports that an oh-so-slight majority of 51 percent wouldn’t mind doing without the federal government for even a prolonged period if it would rid them of Obamacare, and perhaps even beyond that, but we hope they’ll proceed cautiously.
The poll is by the Rasmussen organization, which is widely decried as a Republican outfit, even if their final numbers are usually close to the election results and any bias they have seems to be with the “establishment” Republicans who are cowering from a fight over Obamacare, but we expect it to be widely cited by those itching for an all-or-nothing fight over the law. We wish these daredevils well, of course, and would be pleased by a federal government shutdown for almost any old reason, but nonetheless there is a nagging worry that they should go about their business cautiously. Public opinion is fickle, as countless former pop sensations will testify, and there is depressing precedent for the notion that it will buy almost everything. Without weighing in definitively on the cut-Obamacare-or-fight debate currently being waged on the right, we’ll confess to a nagging worry that it might be best to let those blissfully ignorant folk find out just how bad it can be.
— Bud Norman
The Central Standard Times 