The pain is going to be primarily felt by people who were already working and already more likely to vote Republican. The “free” health care is going to go to a lot of low info voters, immigrants and lower-middle-class people. Some of them can be turned from unregistered into permanent Democrat voters. Some of the middle class who might have backed the Republicans will switch to Democrat as soon as the checks start coming in. The Democrats knew what they’re doing with this overall plan, despite some of the incompetence of the implementation. The implementation will be fixed and forgotten and buried by the media soon enough. This law will not collapse on its own and will not create more “net” opponents to it than already existed in 2012. It’s a get-out-the-vote bill by the Democrats and will shore up presidential elections for them for the foreseeable future. Elections have consequences and putting the Democrats in charge of all branches of government like the public did in 2008 was guaranteed to cause severe long-term damage for the nation and is doing so.
No, the pain is going to be primarily felt by everyone who works for a living and pays for their own health insurance, either privately, or through their employer.
The pain is going to be the most bi-partisan effect you've ever seen, and it's going to make millions of registered Democrats stop and seriously ask themselves just why they've been voting for Democrats all this time.
Stories about sticker shocked Dems are popping up in the news all over the place. They're losing their health care coverage just like Republicans are, but unlike Pubbies, they feel betrayed by their leaders -- particularly Obama, who promised them over and over that they could keep their health care plan if they liked it.
Just wait until thousands of formerly covered liberals begin being denied life saving medical procedures and medicines, or go broke trying to pay the heightened costs of health coverage through Obamacare. The left is quite literally going to explode in rage.
And if you think all those yuppies in upscale urban enclaves around the country are going to be happy being thrust into low grade government health care, ala Medicaid, you've got another think coming. They're going to be enraged.
There will be a price to pay at the polls for this. Dems in Congress will be lucky if they don't wind up decorating lamp posts because of it.