As We Await Mandatemageddon, ObamaCare Still Pretty Darned Unpopular

But, says this poll, so is the current US health system. Must have really killed Obama cheerleader Chris Cillizza to write this

(Washington Post) A majority of Americans view both the United States’ current health care system and the changes enacted in President Obama’s health care bill in an unfavorable light – a one-two punch of disillusionment that epitomizes just how tough it is for politicians to talk about health care on the campaign trail.

Bold is the article writers. I guess they wanted to point out that this atrocity of a bill is his baby.

Fifty-six percent of Americans rate the nation’s current health care system unfavorably in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, while 52 percent regard the “federal law making changes in the health care system” in a negative light.

The numbers are even more stark when they are broken down into those who feel strongly favorably versus strongly unfavorably about each system. In each case, the number of people who feel strongly opposed is more than twice those who feel strongly in support – a testament to the fact that all of the energy on health care is on the side opposing both the old/new system.

And perhaps most interestingly, Americans who are not happy with their current health care also give Obama’s health care law negative ratings, by a 2-to-1 margin.

This is a group that health reform was theoretically supposed to help. Back in August 2009, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that people who were less satisfied with their current health care were more likely to believe it would improve under health care reform. That clearly hasn’t happened.

No, it hasn’t happened. Why? Because most people aren’t idiots, and even those who are even marginally informed understood then and understand now that Obamacare will in no way make health insurance and health care better, but will make them worse. It’ll raise costs, mess with their HSAs, cause their employer to drop their insurance offerings, etc and so on. Switching over to the ABC News story on the poll

One key challenge is that while Americans are broadly dissatisfied with the system overall, vastly more — 75 percent — rate their own quality of care favorably. The difficulty thus remains where it’s been all along: Forging solutions to the current system’s problems that don’t leave people fearing they’ll lose what many see as their own good quality of care now.

Democrats thought they had a mandate to Do Something, but what they ended up doing was unpopular, despite throwing in a few popular ideas like keeping kids on their parents insurance till the age of 26. They thought that since people thought the overall system was broken, they’d be able to fix it. Alas, when people realized (even before the bill was passed) that the ACA would effect their own health insurance/health care, they came out against the bill. And the popularity of it has not gotten better.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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