THE OBAMACARE SLEEPER DISASTER FOR DEMS IN NOVEMBER

In the Kaiser Family Foundation’s tracking poll for September, 47 percent of registered voters had an unfavorable opinion of Obamacare; 35 percent approved. In a poll for the liberal webzine Politico last month, 44 percent of likely voters said the law should be repealed; 38 percent said it should be "modified." Only 17 percent want to keep it as is.

Throughout the summer, dissatisfaction with Obamacare has risen across the political spectrum, among all age, ethnic and income groups, the monthly Kaiser surveys indicate. This is because "more and more people are having personal experience with the law," said Byron York of the Washington Examiner.

In September, 44 percent of Kaiser’s respondents said Obamacare has affected them personally, up from 38 percent in May. Twice as many said they’d been hurt by the law as said they’d been helped by it.

Yet, says Politico, Obamacare has become "background noise" in the midterm elections. It’s the "incredible fading issue," says U.S. News & World Report. It’s "fizzled," said the Christian Science Monitor.

This may be the oddest bit of political spin ever. It’s true many Americans tell pollsters they’re concerned more about illegal immigration, Islamic terror, the faltering economy. But liberal journalists believe – or expect you to – that it’s somehow good for Democrats that other issues now work even better for Republicans than Obamacare does.

And though Americans may not be talking as much about Obamacare these days, they haven’t forgotten about it. It ranked second, after economy/jobs, in the Kaiser tracking poll. In a Public Opinion Strategies survey in July, 9 percent of respondents said Obamacare was the most important issue; 39 percent said it was very important; 32 percent said it was somewhat important.

Those who said they’d been affected by Obamacare personally ranked it higher as an issue; were more likely to disapprove of it.

More Americans are having – or are about to have – a bad personal experience with Obamacare as it enters its second year.

Many – especially in Minnesota, where the state’s largest insurer (59 percent of individual enrollees) who offered the lowest cost plans pulled out of the state health exchange last month – face big premium hikes.

"People who decide to stick with the coverage they’ve already gotten through Obamacare, rather than switching plans, are at risk for some of the biggest premium spikes anywhere in the system," writes Sam Baker of the National Journal. "And some people won’t even know their costs went up until they get a bill from the IRS."

A combination of rate hikes and diminished subsidies could increase the cost of health insurance for low income consumers 30 to 100 percent, calculated Milliman, an actuarial and consulting firm.

The 87 percent of Obamacare policyholders who get subsidies have to re-enroll, but Healthcare.gov, the federal web site, still hasn’t been fixed. It’s a security disaster, can’t calculate the subsidies accurately.

Others are discovering their "low cost" plan comes with an extraordinarily high deductible, and/or severely restricts their choice of doctors and hospitals. Still others learn there is a big difference between having health insurance and actually getting health care.

The clumsy, rigid way the Obamacare "bands" were designed means that modest changes can make a plan that was legal this year illegal next year.

Liberal journalists paint as rosy a picture as they can for the 56 percent who haven’t yet had a personal experience with Obamacare. This was the headline Politico put on its story:  "New Poll: More Want to Keep ACA than Repeal it."

The accuracy of the headline depends on the extent of the modifications the 38 percent want, which Politico prefers to keep vague. Big majorities in the Public Opinion Strategies poll backed changes which would gut the law. When coupled with a "market-based" reform, support for repeal rose to 71 percent.

The administration postponed from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15 the start of the enrollment period for next year, so many Americans won’t get their bad news until after they’ve voted. But because so many already have gotten bad news, Obamacare is about to decide the midterm elections – just as it did in 2010, said Drudge Report Editor Joseph Curl.

"We now know that Obamacare is the death of our middle class quality of life," said author Wayne Allyn Root. In November, "the middle class will have their revenge," he predicts.  Let’s pray they do.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Discuss this item on the forums. Click Here!