Posted on 11/19/2013 5:05:51 AM PST by SeekAndFind
‘The Affordable Care Act’s political position has deteriorated dramatically over the last week.” That, coming from longtime Obamacare cheerleader and Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, was pretty strong language. And it was only Wednesday.
That was the day after the release of a devastating Quinnipiac national poll. It showed Barack Obama’s approval rating at 39 percent, with his disapproval rating at 54 percent — sharply down from 45 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval on October 1, the day the government shutdown began and HealthCare.gov went into (limited) operation.
Democrats hoped that Republicans would take a shellacking in public opinion for the October 1–16 government shutdown. They did, briefly. But Quinnipiac’s survey, conducted three weeks after the shutdown ended, indicated that the Obamacare rollout inflicted much more damage on the Democratic brand — and the party’s leader.
Quinnipiac’s numbers on Obamacare were also exactly the same as their numbers on Obama: 49 percent favored the health-care legislation, 55 percent were opposed. Moreover, a near majority — 46 percent — said the president knowingly deceived them when he assured Americans over and over that they could keep their health-insurance plans.
There are few names a president can be called that are more damaging than “liar.”
The numbers are particularly daunting when you look at the groups that Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg identifies as major parts of “the big cultural and demographic wave that threatens to swamp the Republican party” — young voters and Hispanics.
Obama carried voters under 30 by 66 percent to 32 percent in 2008 and 60 percent to 37 percent in 2010. He carried older voters by one point in the first election and lost them to Mitt Romney in the second.
Obama did even better with Hispanics: 67 percent to 31 percent in 2008 and 71 percent to 27 percent in 2012. This was one of the few demographic groups among which he ran stronger than four years earlier.
But that was then, and this is now. Quinnipiac shows young voters disapproving of Obama 54 percent to 36 percent and Hispanics disapproving 47 percent to 41 percent.
Both groups rate him negatively on the economy, the federal budget, immigration, foreign policy, and health care. Bare majorities, 51 percent of both groups, say Obama cares about people like them.
Obamacare, popular among both groups in 2012, is now an Obama albatross. Young voters oppose it 51 percent to 42 percent and Hispanics 50 percent to 44 percent. Majorities of both groups give Obama negative ratings on health care.
One must note that this is just one poll and that opinions may change as events unfold. But it looks very much like the astonishingly disastrous Obamacare rollout has moved opinion decisively against the president and his trademark policy.
And all those predictions — not just by Democrats — that the Republican party faced extinction because of overwhelming opposition from Millennials and Hispanics look to be, like Mark Twain’s famous obituary, premature.
There’s one other interesting result from Quinnipiac. Has the Obama administration “been competent in running the government”? Overall, 53 percent said no and only 43 percent said yes. Young voters (47 percent said yes, 46 percent said no) and Hispanics (51 percent said yes, 46 percent said no) were only slightly more positive.
The fiasco of the HealthCare.gov website undoubtedly contributed to this. But perhaps Americans are also starting to notice that this president is not performing his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the law — and, in this case, a law he and his party wrote.
The Obama administration announced last July that it is not enforcing Obamacare’s employer mandate. It has admitted that it cannot verify the eligibility of applicants for Obamacare subsidies. (Come and get it!)
It says it will provide subsidies for those buying insurance through the federal health-care exchanges in 36 states — even though the legislation nowhere authorizes that.
And last Thursday, as congressional Democrats were panicking and supporting measures to allow people to keep their current health-insurance policies, Obama announced that he would not impose penalties on policies that don’t comply with the law.
That was plainly a transparent attempt to fob off the blame for canceled policies on insurers and state regulators who complied with the law as written. It is a political ploy inconsistent with the rule of law.
Quinnipiac and other pollsters are not in the habit of asking Americans whether presidents are faithfully executing the law. The assumption has been that, unlike in Russia, they mostly are — or were.
The framers of the Constitution regarded refusal to faithfully execute the law as tyranny. Barack Obama, with his Swiss-cheese exceptions to Obamacare, seems to take a different view.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner
Please notify me when it hits “ZERO” to match his knick-name.
Well said.
The Obamanation’s approval rating at 39%; yet, if the Great Usurper were running today he would win by a narrow margin. Something is dreadfully wrong wrong with that picture. He was already loathed when he ran against Romney.
You are right, and the funny thing is, we all KNEW IT AT THE TIME……and yet, the wizards, the pundits, the mavens, the geniuses….were so friggin obsessed with the guv shutdown.
Shutdown? What’s shutdown?
You are right, and the funny thing is, we all KNEW IT AT THE TIME……and yet, the wizards, the pundits, the mavens, the geniuses….were so friggin obsessed with the guv shutdown.
Shutdown? What’s shutdown?
My heart bleeds for him/sarc
Not devastating enough. As many have been saying, and Santorum said this morning on Bennet, obastard is lawless. He can’t be stopped by the courts in any reasonable time and impeachment is the only way and that will not happen with reed. The whole cabal is lawless. There is only one way to stop them all and it is not an election.
On Morning Joe they showed an even worse one for pregressives:
Now only about 40% polled said the government should make sure everyone has health insurance, versus ~ 60% in 2008.
That is because Obama and Dems told them it would be free(to them), that only guys like Romney would pay for it.
They thought the mandates are free just like they think minimum wage laws are free.
Teachable moment as Dems call it.
That's an understatement. Like saying the HMS Titanic's seaworthiness "deteriorated dramatically" that one fateful night...
Amazing, when we were warning everyone about Obama and Obamacare
we were dismissed as “racists”. Of course, that’s a tenet of the left’s ideology - those opposed to it are inherently morally inferior and unworthy of discussing the issue with.
The website will not be fully functioning by the deadline for enrollment.
They are kicking around letting people bypass the website and apply directly with insurers, but the insurers have no way to accurately verify income/subsidies. One assumes they will just take the applicants’ words for it. Insurers are being promised that if they undercalculate the subsidy, Uncle Sam will cover the difference, but if they overcalculate, they’ll keep the difference. What a deal!
I think we’ll see a capitulation on the individual mandate. It will be delayed-with the broken access system, it will have to be. Maybe that should again be a GOP demand for raising the debt limit. By now, I think there would be more than a few Rats who would support it. (Cruz will be vindicated.)
Things are getting worse for Nobamacare by the minute. Every day there are new revelations about the extent of the fraud and incompetency regarding the website.
Employers will start getting cancellation notices by the first of the year. Then all hell will break loose.
At some point, the political pressure may be so great that Rats start peeling off in support of repeal. They’ll have no choice if they want to survive a bloodbath.
Meh. I argue with a lot of liberals on the internet. In 2008 they all voted for him because they loved him.
In 2012 they still voted for him but it was because they just couldn’t vote for Romney. That is the dirty little secret here. They may think he is a dirty lying scoundrel, but at least he’s not a republican.
And yes, I know that he’s not running for another term. The good news in this, however, is that this can’t be helping the other democrats.
They cheated. Stole the votes they needed in the key states with zero real opposition. Did he get more votes than he ever should have in a sane world? Ofcourse. But they still stole to pull his sorry ass over the finish line.
Thanks for posting - interesting.
Question: It reads “49 percent favored the health-care legislation, 55 percent were opposed”.
49 + 55 = 104% What am I missing? No doubt I’m reading something wrong.
Wait until young voters find out how much of THEIR MONEY (and their Children’s money) he already spent (Do you like your solyndra solar panales?)
Love to have the money to blanket billboards across the nation with his mug and LIAR text overlay.
Racists, terrorists, hostage takers, deniers, extremists, etc…..
Damn, being right before everyone else is such a burden…..
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