Obamacare-WeLove-Siign

Let’s look at the polling (from USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Pew, Washington Post, Kaiser, Rasmussen- all in the last 12 days).
Here is my aggregate averaging the results from those polls.

The numbers you see most often are:

42% are in favor of it

52% are against it

6% have not made up their minds

Seems pretty clear cut. Right? Nope.

When you ask those opposed to it why they are opposed to it, here is what you get:

35% oppose the health care law because it’s too liberal

16% say they oppose the measure because it isn’t liberal enough.

My best guess is that the 16% do not want ACA repealed since any reform is better than no reform. Accounting for that the numbers look like this:

36% want the ACA repealed

58% want the ACA to go forward with improvements

6% have not made up their minds

Let’s dig a little deeper. Poll for each of the major elements in the ACA and here is what you get:

83% for insurance pool where small businesses and uninsured have access to insurance exchanges to take advantage of large group pricing benefits.

67% for providing subsidies on a sliding scale to aid individuals and families who cannot afford health insurance.

59% for requiring companies with more than 50 employees to provide insurance for their employers.

65% for allowing children to stay on parents insurance until age 26.

81% for banning insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions

85% for banning insurance companies from cancelling policies because a person becomes ill.

52% for expanding Medicaid to families with incomes less than $30,000 per year.

As for how many Americans support shutting down the government as extortion to end the ACA, only 27 percent approve of that. Always good to keep in mind that whenever you see a percentage in a poll around 30% that supports something outrageous that it’s also about the identical percentage of hard core Republicans in the country…and is unfortunately to be expected.

So where does ACA stand right now?

Health Insurance Exchanges by State Ready for October 1:

States with federally run exchanges (27)
AL, AK, AZ, FL, GA, IN, KS, LA, ME, MS, MO, MT, NE, NJ, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX,UT, VA, WI, WY

States with state based exchanges (17)
CA, CO, CT, DC, HI, ID, KY, MD, MA, MN, NV, NM, NY, OR, RI, VT, WA

States with state/federal partnership exchanges (7)
AR, DE, IL, IA, MI, NH, WV

As for states expanding Medicaid:

Committed to the Expansion (19)
AZ, GA, CO, CT, DE, DC, MD, MA, MI, MN, NJ, NM, NY, ND, OR, RI, VT, WA, WV

Learning toward Commitment (4)
HI, KT, NV, OH

Participating Through an Alternate Expansion Model (1)
AR

Considering the Alternative Expansion Model (4)
IN, IA, OK, PA

States Not Expanding Medicaid
Opposing Participation (15)
AL, AK, GA, ID, KS, LA, ME, MS, MN, NE, NC, SC, TX, WI, WY

Leaning toward Not Participating (7)
FL, MO, NH, SD, TN, UT, VA

The Affordable Care Act was passed by both houses of Congress, signed into the law by the President and affirmed as Constitutional by the SCOTUS. Most people think it is time to move on and focus on addressing real problems in our society, like jobs, economic justice, immigration reform, etc. Meanwhile, Republican politicians focus on their priority, re-election. All the turmoil, conflict and madness whipped up by the majority of Republicans in Congress…hysterical fear mongering about the ACA, threatening a government shutdown and a default on our debt that would plunge the U.S. and the world back into an economic tailspin…all of it is just about these self-centered Republicans pandering to the fanatics in their base so they can get re-elected. That’s it. Despite the Oath of Office they take, Republicans in Congress have proven that the only loyalty they have is to themselves and what they see as their entitlement to a position of superiority, wealth and power.

To adapt a line from Woody Allen’s film, Hannah and Her Sisters, “If The Founders came back and saw what’s going on in their name, they’d never stop throwing up.”

 

Sources:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the third of a trio of articles on the ACA, authored by MurphThe Surf3 with contributions by Adlib.

 

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goleafsgo
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goleafsgo

Hi, Murph, Congratulations on this. Great job and very informative.
I have been reading a couple of articles about the numerous religious movements like the Few Apostolic Reformation that has among its goals, infiltrated the military as well as government – the Pentagon. An concerning article by Bruce Wilson on the Tea Party and written up in HuffPo, led me to a link with more information on Dominionism.
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2013/10/2/142750/172 where it speaks of Tea Party politicians like Ted Cruz and his father Pastor Cruz. As a Dominionist, he preaches against Obamacare and homosexuality with claims that “Socialism requires that government becomes your God. That is why they have to destroy your concept of God…destroy all your loyalties except to the government.”

Bruce Wilson’s article discusses Rick Joyner, the Prophet of the NAR and quotes him as saying there must be a “military dictatorship.”
He says things like “There is no way our Republic can last much longer. It may not last through Obama;s second term.”…We’re heading for serious tyranny”…”I believe our only hope is a military takeover: martial law.”

Wilson further notes the “Oak Initiative” framer U.S. Undersecretary of Defense, William “Jerry” Boykin, in a video claimed Obamacare has “provision to create a constabulatory force, a force that can control the population.”

Now, to my point in all of this. When replying to PharmaCan’s post with some of this information and the links, it was immediately deleted. I reposted with with just the links…Bruce Wilson’s does not work…and it posted.

The “talk2action.org” also has a page that states the NAR’s leadership teaches “…Dominionism..the belief that Christians of similar beliefs should take ‘dominion’ over society and government prior to Jesus’ return.” I see a headline in HP the Michele Bachmann claims “We are living in the end days.” Must read that ; )

You may know all this, but what goes with the deletes at HP? I have had this a few times lately. Once when I used the term buffoon in relation to Ted Cruz! LOL!

choicelady
Member

Murph I just read that Roy Blunt is encouraging everyone to sign up for ACA!!! That was on Think Progress – is it accurate? That, coming from a Republican, is HUGE! That should help the wobbly undecided folks who really need health insurance but are afraid of ACA. Good on him, as Molly Ivins would have said.

AdLib
Admin

Got this graphic in an email today from the Democratic Party, does a simple and direct job on communicating what the ACA is:

[imgcomment image[/img]

agrippa
Member
agrippa

I think that some of the opposition results from partisanship – “not invented here’. Many of those opposed would have no problem if it were passed by the GOP.

It is, also, a change. People do not want change; inertia is a problem.

Some people do not believe that there is a right to medical care. If you pay for it or hedge against it, fine. If not, “sorry”.

I think that those reasons account for most of the opposition.

AdLib
Admin

agrippa, that is undeniably the case since the ACA is essentially the GOP health care plan with some Dem ideas grafted on. It’s openly based on Romneycare which was based on the Repub’s counter-proposal to Hillarycare back in the 1990’s (wonder if she’s just a tiny bit jealous that Obama has his name on US universal health care forever instead of her?).

So, what we’re seeing are Republicans voting against their own plan simply because the black Dem President supported it.

Change is scary to most people but I do think a majority not only wanted this change but would be happier if it went farther, to Single Payer.

I don’t know that the opposition to it is genuine. The 1% have been working to strip the 99% of a social safety net to put the savings in their own pockets so we know why they’re “protecting America” from it. Otherwise, the racism and maniacal jealousy against Obama being President seems to explain the rest of the opposition.

I still haven’t heard one legit, fact based criticism of the ACA…and I would suggest that it’s because that’s not what any of this opposition is about.

choicelady
Member

Thank you for another rational and helpful insight into ACA.

While I think racism lies at the heart of much of this opposition, ACA never would fly today even as a GOP plan. Grover Norquistian hatred of federal government (or even state) has permeated a fiction about ‘rugged individualism’ and ‘self direction’ that never was true and is less true every passing moment. The long steady beat of “government is the enemy” has taken hold in some quarters, particularly those repudiating the national government in 1860.

We live in a world of fantasy about how self sufficient we can be. Any trailer-dwelling family off in the woods may make it, but it depends so much on how you define that ideal of “making it”. In “The Glass Castle”, a true story, children grow up with parents so deluded by their own specialness and difference that they allow the kids to starve, dwell in abject poverty, and be neglected so the parents can serve their selfishness and their ‘art’. That’s a lefty version of the story, but it exists everywhere. So “making it” comes to mean – nobody died. Yet.

But ask cold, hungry, sick kids if that’s enough. Rickets that could be prevented, disease that could be cured? Dismissing that in your family is sheer evil, not triumphalism over government. Ayn Rand might be proud of you in principle – but at the end SHE took Medicare, too.

What drives us is illusion. What saves us is reality. ACA is the latter.

AdLib
Admin

CL – Boiling down what the GOP really wants is, let the poor and middle class go without reliable or available health insurance. What a platform to stand on!

They mouth the words of “affordable insurance” and “We should look at ways to deal with pre-existing conditions after repealing Obamacare” but it’s such an obvious dodge.

What they’re really afraid of is that Americans will finally know for certain that Republicans really do prefer that they suffer, die or go bankrupt if they get ill because it’s better for big business and the health care corporations…not to mention that their dream of drowning our democracy and government in the bathtub requires that Americans are abandoned by their government, not helped.

The word is bandied around so much it may have lost its meaning but I can’t think of a more accurate word to describe Republican politicians, as they work against the people and the future of the nation, than “traitors”.

Nirek
Member

Agrippa, you may be right as far as many folks go, but for many others it is “hate”. They hate the President and the fact that he is a black man.

I’m sure there are some who don’t hate him but they are a minority. That is my opinion.