25% of Americans Say Obamacare Has Hurt Them

Isn’t it fascinating to watch the mainstream media report on polls that are unfavorable to the Obama administration’s healthcare law? Take this new poll sponsored by NPR, Harvard, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Released Monday, it found that 25% of Americans believe that Obamacare has directly hurt them financially while a mere 15% say it has helped them. How does the media report this? By emphasizing the 56% of respondents who say it hasn’t had any direct effect on them at all.

Even that figure is troubling when you really think about it, though. This is Obama’s signature piece of legislation, his legacy! And the majority of Americans haven’t been affected by it at all? That’s a pretty sad state of affairs, especially when you consider how much this law is projected to cost the country over the next decade. When you combine it with the quarter of Americans who feel it has put a strain on their finances, it’s really amazing that the media can find a positive spin. Well, they have had plenty of practice.

Going a step further, it should be noted that just because the majority of Americans don’t believe Obamacare has done anything one way or another, it doesn’t mean they’re happy with the status quo. Perhaps they are still waiting for a healthcare plan that would actually bring down the cost of medical insurance – a plan they did not find under the “Affordable” Care Act.

Polls aside, the core structure of Obamacare is sliding towards disaster.

According to one top federal health official, eight out of 11 insurance co-ops could collapse before 2016 is over. Mandy Cohen testified before Congress on Thursday, telling the House Oversight panel that the public co-ops are in serious financial trouble and utterly incapable of competing with for-profit health insurance companies.

Not that those companies are doing much better, mind you. The biggest insurance company in America, UnitedHealth, has lost more than $1 billion since joining the Obamacare exchanges. The company may pull out of those exchanges entirely by the end of the year.

This presents a golden opportunity for Republicans who want to run on a platform of repealing the law, which they have all advocated. But if they want that argument to gain traction, they’ll have to do a better job explaining to the public why Obamacare is a colossal failure and they’ll have to come up with a comprehensive plan to replace it.