The Political Cost of Obamacare

Amy Walter: “Since Obamacare was passed in 2010 there have been four national elections. In these four elections, Democrats and their affiliated outside groups and SuperPACs spent $57 million on 100,000 ads supporting Obamacare. Meanwhile, Republican candidates and affiliated outside groups, spent $666 million on 1.3 million anti-Obamacare ads. In other words, for every dollar Democrats spent promoting the new law in a campaign ad, Republicans spent ten dollars trashing it.”

“Ultimately, Democrats believed that over time Americans would come to see the benefits of the health care law. But, without a robust and active defense of Obamacare by the Democrats, Republicans were able to make the law more about politics than policy. If you liked Obama, you liked the law. If you didn’t like him, you hated it. This is why it’s easy to understand how those who have benefited the most from the new law were also willing to support a candidate for president who vowed to dismantle it.”

“The lesson in all of this for the GOP: it’s a lot easier to demagogue than it is to defend. If they want to avoid the fate of Democrats in the upcoming mid-terms, they must be prepared to spend as much money promoting the changes in the new law as they did in undermining the old one.”