A new Rasmussen survey finds that most voters for the first time want Congress to fix the new national health care law rather than repeal it.
While 30% of likely voters still think Congress should repeal it entirely and start over again, 52% prefer instead that Congress go through the law piece by piece and improve it. Just 13% want to leave the law as is.
Wonk Wire: Obamacare supporters’ rhetoric could undermine latest legal challenge
“The controversy over Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber’s ‘stupidity of the American voter’ comments reignited yesterday, as a powerful Congressional panel summoned the embattled MIT professor to testify in Washington next month,” the Boston Herald reports.
Wonk Wire: Which is dumber: Gruber’s comments of Gruber-gate?
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]What are the chances that Gruber calls the lawmakers stupid? [/speech_bubble]
“House Republicans filed a long-threatened lawsuit Friday against the Obama administration over unilateral actions on the health care law that they say are abuses of the president’s executive authority,” the New York Times reports.
“The lawsuit — filed against the secretaries of the Health and Human Services and Treasury Departments — focuses on two crucial aspects of the way the administration has put the Affordable Care Act into effect.”
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“Republican lawmakers are doubling down on controversial comments from Obamacare consultant Jonathan Gruber amid an explosion of interest from conservative media,” The Hill reports.
“Remarks that the ‘stupidity of the American voter’ and a ‘lack of transparency’ aided Obamacare’s passage have become a weeklong headache for the White House as GOP lawmakers use them to rally enthusiasm for further attacks on the healthcare law.”
Wonk Wire: Why Gruber’s comments were so stupid
“With the health insurance marketplace now open for a second year, President Obama will be depending more than ever on the insurance companies that five years ago he accused of padding profits and canceling coverage for the sick,” the New York Times reports.
“Those same insurers have long viewed government as an unreliable business partner that imposed taxes, fees and countless regulations and had the power to cut payment rates and cap profit margins.”
“But since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, the relationship between the Obama administration and insurers has evolved into a powerful, mutually beneficial partnership that has been a boon to the nation’s largest private health plans and led to a profitable surge in their Medicaid enrollment.”
Gallup: “As the Affordable Care Act’s second open enrollment period begins, 37% of Americans say they approve of the law, one percentage point below the previous low in January. Fifty-six percent disapprove, the high in disapproval by one point.”
“Repeal is highly unlikely, given Obama’s veto power, but the law’s new low in approval — and new high in disapproval (56%) — could potentially have an impact on its future. The president himself has acknowledged he will consider modifications to the law, which could include repealing the tax on medical devices.”
Wonk Wire: Who still lacks health insurance?
“The fact that an adviser who was never on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is not a reflection on the actual process that was run… I would just advise every press outlet here: Pull up every clip and every story. I think it’s fair to say there was not a provision in the health care law that was not extensively debated and was fully transparent.”
— President Obama, quoted by Politico, on recently-surfaced remarks by MIT professor Jonathan Gruber that suggested taxpayers were intentionally misled on health care taxes.
A new Gallup poll finds that 71% “of those who bought new health insurance policies through the government exchanges earlier this year rate the quality of their healthcare and their healthcare coverage as ‘excellent’ or ‘good.’ These positive evaluations are generally similar to the reviews that all insured Americans give to their health insurance.”
“Among those who bought new health insurance policies through the exchanges, the majority are about as satisfied with their coverage and healthcare as are other Americans — suggesting that the end result of the exchange enrollment process is a generally positive one for those who take advantage of it.”
“In a 2011 conversation about the Affordable Care Act, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of the law more commonly known as Obamacare, talked about how the bill would get rid of all tax credits for employer-based health insurance through ‘mislabeling’ what the tax is and who it would hit,” CNN reports.
“In previously posted but only recently noticed speeches, Gruber discusses how those pushing the bill took part in an ‘exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter,’ taking advantage of voters’ ‘stupidity’ to create a law that would ultimately be good for them.”
Wonk Wire: Was Jonathan Gruber really the architect of Obamacare?
“The Republican Party’s ardent campaign against President Obama’s health-care law gained new momentum Wednesday as lawmakers reacted angrily to assertions by an architect of the policy that it was crafted in a deliberately deceptive way in order to pass Congress,” the Washington Post reports.
“On both sides of the Capitol, leading conservatives said they may call economist Jonathan Gruber to testify about his remarks, which were made last year and surfaced this week in a video on social media. In the video, Gruber suggests that the administration’s signature health-care legislation passed in part because of the ‘stupidity of the American voter’ and a ‘lack of transparency’ over its funding mechanisms.”
Wonk Wire: Will the GOP’s anti-Obamacare alternative “kill people.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “is still ready to use any means necessary to repeal Obamacare,” Politico reports.
“But even his fellow conservatives aren’t all jumping on board – a sign that the Republican repeal or bust movement is struggling while Obamacare continues to enroll millions of people with health insurance.”
Wonk Wire: Obamacare premiums, on average, are actually falling in major cities
Wonk Wire: “So it turns out there is an Obamacare death panel after all. It has nine members and it operates out of a marble building directly across the street from the Capitol.”
Charlie Cook: “In mid-summer 2009, polls universally showed that Americans wanted the president, along with the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, to focus on the economy and job creation. Instead, in its infinite wisdom, Congress chose to focus almost exclusively and obsessively on health care reform. Although this was a worthy objective, the effort would likely have been better spent in a time when people weren’t so worried about their economic well-being. This horrific choice, to focus on the Affordable Care Act rather than the economy, besides costing Democrats their House majority—not to mention platoons of Democratic governors and state legislators who would have been handy in drawing the congressional redistricting maps the next year—created scar tissue that remains to this day.”
“Americans resent the policy choices that Obama and congressional Democrats made early on… Choices have consequences, and elections have consequences. The decisions of 2009 and 2010 just keep on having consequences for Democrats.”
First Read: “The newest round of open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act begins in less than a week, just as the law comes under a new threat with the Supreme Court’s decision that it will hear a new challenge questioning its government subsidies.. The case raises the stakes for HealthCare.gov too; the last thing the Obama administration needs is a repeat of last year’s embarrassing technical glitches. On the flip side, the lawsuit could have an important political effect: It could give GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner leeway to avoid dealing with the issue of health care right away. By having a court case to point to, Republicans could delay the health care showdown between their party and the White House – and even one within the GOP itself.”
“Congressional midterm losses aside — when it comes to health care, Democrats might be even more stung by the party’s big losses in governors’ mansions and state legislatures last Tuesday. Democrats were counting on a few more gubernatorial wins, which would have boosted the number of states expanding Medicaid or starting state exchanges. The more folks who are insured through ACA, the more entrenched the law becomes – which in turn makes it harder to dismantle.”
Wonk Wire: Could the Supreme Court destroy Obamacare?
Michael Barone says “the fiasco of the rollout of healthcare.gov” was a key contributor to the Democratic defeat in the 2014 midterm elections.
“The Obama administration had 42 months between the passage of Obamacare and the Oct. 1 rollout. In the 42 months between the attack on Pearl Harbor and victory In Europe, the United States deployed a 16 million-man military around the world, produced thousands of ships, tanks and airplanes, and advanced in Europe and the Pacific to produce the “absolute victory” FDR promised over Hitler. In 42 months the Obama administration couldn’t build a functioning website.”
“Voters noticed. By late November, the big Democratic lead in the generic vote had disappeared, never to reappear. Republican politicians and primary voters noticed, too. The pool of House hardliners shrank from about 40 to perhaps a dozen. No more government shutdowns, thank you very much.”
SCOTUSblog: “The Supreme Court, moving back into the deep controversy over the new health care law, agreed early Friday afternoon to decide how far the federal government can extend its program of subsidies to buyers of health insurance.”
“By adding the case to its decision docket at this point, without waiting for further action in lower federal courts, as the Obama administration had asked, the Court assured that it would rule on the case during the current term.”
Jonathan Cohn: “The latest legal challenge to Obamacare just became very credible—and very dangerous.”
A new Public Opinion Strategies (R) Election Night Poll shows that the Affordable Care Act was not as much of a vote factor in 2014 as it was in 2010.
Key findings:
Wonk Wire: Repealing Obama: From political stunt to proposed policy?
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.