Patterico's Pontifications

3/24/2012

Reclaiming Obamacare?

Filed under: General — Karl @ 9:41 am



[Posted by Karl]

As noted by the WSJ (and others):

The term “Obamacare” started out as a derogatory name that opponents of the 2010 health overhaul used when they criticized the law. But on Friday, President Barack Obama signaled he’s trying to reclaim the moniker for those who like the law.

“Happy birthday to Obamacare: two years in, the Affordable Care Act is making millions of Americans’ lives better every day,” read a message from the president’s Twitter feed on Friday, the two-year anniversary of his signing of the insurance-expansion law. Then he tweeted: “If you’re proud of Obamacare and tired of the other side using it as a dirty word, complete this sentence: #ILikeObamacare because…”

To lefty chagrin, the hashtag was quickly taken over by conservative mockery; most of the supportive tweets were Astroturf from elected Democrats (though not — afaik — Dems facing tough races this year).  But notice the internal contradiction in the WSJ lede — if Obamacare “started out” as a derogatory name, can it be reclaimed?  In reality, there was a school of thought on the left that embraced the term “Obamacare” at first, thinking it was great to use a president with approval ratings in the sixties as the face of the legislation.  It was only after the politically toxic initiative began to sink Obama — and many other Dems with him — that even the better White House reporters like Jake Tapper would cave to progressive complaints about the label.

Obamacare remains unpopular, so why the effort by Dems to reclaim the term now?  Obama originally planned to avoid marking the two-year anniversary of the law as they would have done if it was popular.  However, Democrats likely realized they could not abandon the field as the Supreme Court prepared to hear argument against Obamacare next week.  And if they persist past next week, the rebranding effort may give a clue about how Team Obama plans to campaign against most-likely GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

–Karl

32 Responses to “Reclaiming Obamacare?”

  1. Ding!

    Karl (6f7ecd)

  2. Come five-ten years from now, when Obamacare (Which shall not be repealed) is a mess that an even greater number of Americans disagree with, it will be convenient that Obama is given direct responsibility.

    A federal ind mandate is wrong and it can’t work, but they just want single payer via destruction of the current system anyway.

    Dustin (330eed)

  3. Republicans need to ensure we have a detailed “plan” ready (e,g., reform Medicare, healthcare savings accounts, a cap on medical malpractice punitive damages, interstate providers, free choice and private medicine) for when ObamaCare is repealed/done away with.

    Colonel Haiku (bd479c)

  4. ___________________________________________

    complete this sentence: #ILikeObamacare because…”

    …I’m a fool and idiot.

    Or,

    …I’m anxiously looking to be hired by the IRS, since they’ll need a lot of new agents in order to ensure that taxpayers comply with the new healthcare law.

    Or,

    …I’m wealthy enough that — similar to all the people who boast about the beauty and wonders of the public-school system while sending their own kids to private schools — I can be idealistic about the implementation of federally-required health insurance because I’ll have my own tricky methods in obtaining and paying for the best medical treatment possible.

    Or,

    …I’m here illegally and already can skirt around various restrictions and requirements imposed by the medical system. So one new mandate — which will cause billions of additional dollars to flood into things like hospital emergency rooms — will make it even easier for schlubs like me to take advantage of this lovely, big-hearted, generous, humane, caring society.

    Mark (31bbb6)

  5. Amazingly I have to agree with Haiku: the reasons that ObamaCare got the support it did were that the current system gives the insurance companies incentives to cherry-pick their customers and leave people by the wayside after they get sick.

    It needs to move from a term-life model to a whole-life model, or in some way become portable and renewable for life, since any system that you pay into before you get sick that abandons you after you get sick (or becomes unaffordable at that point) is one that will remain more unpopular than ObamaCare.

    ObamaCare (and HilaryCare before it) are simply examples of what not to do. There should be some way of addressing the faults of the current system without making it government-run or directly mandated.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  6. Come to the light, my son…

    Colonel Haiku (bd479c)

  7. We knowe from his own comments, back in 2007, and others from Hacker and Schakowsky, that it is designed to eliminate private insurance, ushering
    single payer,

    narciso (6b342a)

  8. There are many reasons for the high cost of healthcare and we really need people to have more “skin in the game” in regards to their health maintenance. Far too easy for the hypochondriacs among us.

    Colonel Haiku (bd479c)

  9. All Congress has to do to be ready, is to allow the interstate purchase of individual health-care policies, minimizing the distortions found in the meddling by the legislatures in the several states.
    Let individuals buy the coverage that they think they need, not what some bought-and-paid-for legislator puts into effect at the behest of the latest, largest campaign contributor to shake his hand.
    The Market-Place can straighten-out this kerfuffle if we would just give it the chance.

    AD-RtR/OS! (caa8c3)

  10. The independent, Pulitzer-award-winning website Politifact.com wrote yesterday (March 23rd) that “the falsehoods about the law have often drowned out the truths.” Link

    Jeremy Wolcott (cc46e9)

  11. “independent, Pulitzer-award-winning website Politifact.com”

    puhleeeze.

    Colonel Haiku (bd479c)

  12. I still remember Jake getting hot under the collar about #obamacare on Twitter. Good times.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  13. obama LIED that his mother was ill-treated because of her insurance company’s policies. by now everyone knows it yet the mainstreamMedia just ignores it. why?

    now we find all immigration forms filled in for foreign flights coming into Hawaii for the month of his birth in 1961 have disappeared as the passport records for is mother in another office as the hospital records of is birth in yet another place: the hospital where he was supposedly born. records for all other mothers who gave birth are there but somehow his mother’s is the ONE missing.

    add to that obaaaama is the only Selective Service Record with a date stamp bearing two digits for the year instead of a full four digits that millions of others bear.

    exactly when are some of you going to discontinue insulting your own intelligence by trying to defend each and every one of these accumulative abnormalities?

    Frances L. (c7f277)

  14. Why is Obama (and Michael Hiltzik) claiming that Obamacare is already helping millions?

    lee (cae7a3)

  15. assuming the SCOTUS upholds the mandate or the policy i think it will help millions of investors in insurance stocks http://redd.it/r7yke

    johnathan bean (8d827f)

  16. I think Plouffe, et al., are just preparing the ground for eviscerating Willard the Mittwit.

    Romneycare was nothing more than cornering $700 Million in Medicare funding for MA coffers. Getting the 49 to fund MA operating budget.

    Will not be pretty. The GOP is snookered.

    gary gulrud (d88477)

  17. 15. Will they hold the mandate separable?

    gary gulrud (d88477)

  18. 13. O’Mamba also lied about his dotter being diagnosed with meningitis. It was merely to be excluded in testing and was never even an unconfirmed diagnosis.

    gary gulrud (d88477)

  19. Too many Americans don’t want to pay for what we get in the way of products and/or services. Too many of us want to pass the cost along to somebody else and there is no one else. Too many of us (Americans) think it is incumbent upon the State to provide for our needs. Unless government spending is reduced, expectations lowered and benefits dramatically reduced, taxes will have to be raised. I don’t think any of us want to see that happen, just as we don’t wish to endure an economic collapse.

    It will take a sea-change in attitude on the part of tens of millions of Americans and it remains to be seen whether there’s a snowball’s chance in Hell of making that happen.

    Colonel Haiku (bd479c)

  20. #ILikeObamacare because anonymous unelected bureaucrats in Washington will tell my 92 year-old liberal Uncle he cannot have heart surgery rather than our long-time family doctor. #wasted votes and political contributions

    #ILikeObamacare because of all the jobs Nancy Pelosi said it would create. Still waiting

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  21. #ILikeObamacare because it forces my greedy emploer to give me more free medical care…wait…why is he giving me a smaller raise and increasing the payroll deduction for my share of medical insurance

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  22. Frances L – People here have been too tied up in answering questions about whether 9/11 was an inside job to dig too deeply into Obama’s birth certificate and draft registration issues. Sorry.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  23. 19. And the parasites least of all want things to change:

    http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/24/blue-virginia/

    VA and MD exceed the 48 in Federal taxes returned, roughly $1.55 returned for every dollar extracted.

    DC gets $5.50. CA at about 85 cents is around average.

    gary gulrud (d88477)

  24. daleyrocks– I am quite certain you are over-reacting or rushing to judgement. Nancy promised you will learn to love this Obamacare law if you just give it a chance.

    elissa (ea306b)

  25. i like Obamacare because my experiences with military medicine and the VA have convinced me that government facilities give much better care than the privately run hospitals and healthcare facilities i have w*rked in the last twenty years…

    redc1c4 (403dff)

  26. #ILikeObamacare cuz it’s free like the ObamaCash outta the ObamaStash.

    Colonel Haiku (bd479c)

  27. I like Obamacare because Obama knows what’s good for me. I’ve given up on thinking for myself, and I know that I’m in the best of hands when he’s there looking out for me.

    Comanche Voter (dc4fc0)

  28. I like Obamacare most of all because it is fair, especially for the 50% of Americans not paying taxes to drain the blood of the 50% what do, even more specially for the greedy, rapey, millionaires what pay a disproportionate share of our taxes who we should skin alive for their sins. #justice

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  29. I like Obamacare because it provides like free medicinal marijuanana to any American who wants it… wait, what?…it doesn’t…f*cker lied to me…dude, I hate this Obamacare bullsh*t because it does not provide free medicinal marijuana to any American who wants it

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  30. Pulitzer-award-winning

    I believe the operational word there is in bold italics, Jeremy… The only way to be conservative and win a Pulitzer is to convert after winning, like, say, David Mamet.

    Also note the fact that they were incapable of coming up with a better name than “Politifact”. It sounds like something found floating in President Downgrade’s toilet, the endpoint of his entire political process…

    IGotBupkis, Noter of the Obvious (8e2a3d)

  31. #ILikeObamacare… because I am both a sadist AND a masochist, and I love pain and misery.

    Like, DUH.

    IGotBupkis, Lover of Shadenfreude, Both Giving and Receiving (8e2a3d)

  32. I like Obamacare because it takes the focus off the efforts of President O’Blameless to shut down our domestic fossil fuel industry and subsidize his socialist cronies in green energy boondoggles.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)


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