Obamacare Approval Hits the Skids

GOP Attacks On Obamacare Fizzle In Key Senate Races (many Americans are benefiting from the law)


Obamacare is fading as a cudgel against Democrats in key battleground races poised to determine control of the Senate, according to a new analysis by Bloomberg News.

Since the law's botched rollout last fall, Republicans have been licking their chops over the prospect of riding Obamacare failures to victory in the 2014 elections. But now that the law has recovered and is providing insurance coverage to millions of Americans, issue ads involving the health care law are slowly disappearing in key states like North Carolina, Louisiana and Arkansas.

In North Carolina, Obamacare was mentioned in 54 percent of issue ads in April; it fell to 27 percent in July, per data from Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group.

In Louisiana, Obamacare fell to 41 percent of top five issue ads in July; in Arkansas it dropped to 23 percent, according to CMAG. The issue dominated the airwaves in both states in April.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obamacare-attacks-fizzle-in-key-senate-races


Obamacare Losing Power as Campaign Weapon in Ad Battles
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...g-punch-as-campaign-weapon-in-ad-battles.html

(snip)
The shift -- also taking place in competitive states such as Arkansas and Louisiana -- shows Republicans are easing off their strategy of criticizing Democrats over the Affordable Care Act now that many Americans are benefiting from the law and the measure is unlikely to be repealed.

“The Republican Party is realizing you can’t really hang your hat on it,” said Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at North Carolina State University. “It just isn’t the kind of issue it was.”


Why Republicans Have Stopped Talking About Obamacare In Campaign Ads


(snip)
357,584 signed up for coverage the the federal exchange; 73,898 were determined to be eligible for Medicaid coverage. According to WalletHub, North Carolina’s uninsurance rate dropped by 2.96 percent from 19.64 percent to 16.68 percent.

(snip)
Arkansas
43,446 signed up for coverage through the federal exchange; 63,465 were determined to be eligible for Medicaid coverage. According to Gallup, “the rate of people without health insurance fell from 22.5 percent in 2013 to 12.4 percent in mid-2014.”

(snip)
Louisiana
101,778 Louisiana residents signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, but most of those enrollees already had coverage. According to one survey, “the percentage of uninsured in Louisiana dropped from 22.41 percent to 20.91 percent. That still leaves more than one of every five residents in the state with no insurance.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/201...lly-accepting-that-obamacare-is-here-to-stay/

 

This post is absolute proof of you commitment to making your posts factual and not political. Post like yours that are so full of ideas are such a refreshing change from those posts that just criticize progressives, liberals, and the left. Please keep up the good work as a force for constructive dialogue.

 

And congradulations for find a fellow deep thinker in Smartmouthwoman. She seems just as committed as you are to maintaining the discussion on a factual basis and removing name calling and political platitudes.

 

Are you smitten with me, CJ? Or just overly eager to protect Obaaaama?

 

Sort of like a good scientist becomes fascinated by a deviant life form.

 

Thanks so much for your comment. When it comes to Health Care, I try to be as factual as I can based on my experience, College, and first hand knowledge of the subject. I am passionate when it comes to health care. I consider Health Insurance and Health Care to be two separate issues. Health Insurance has needed reform at least from the early 1980's(when I began to study and interact with it). The cost of Health Care, meaning the cost of providing health care has continued to rise as more money is spent on drug development, new diagnostic test equipment and procedures, new surgical procedures, new implants, new costly regulations and mandates.

Physician/Surgeons in many specialties have seen their incomes decrease yearly since the beginning of HMO's. PPO's in the early 1990's. Medicare has continually failed to keep pace with the cost of providing treatment to Medicare patients as has Medicaid, even more dramatically done so. Private Insurance companies basically have physicians, hospitals and other providers under their thumbs. If the providers don't sign up for their plans that pay reimbursement far below even that paid by Medicare, the providers cannot continue to treat patients covered by those plans. It is basically "blackmail" IMO.

I warned my husband and other providers of health care that if they signed on to these plans they were giving up their freedom to charge fees they believed were fair and commensurate with their education, experience and the difficulty of the procedure/care they provide.

Because Physicians are one of the few professions subject to federal law that denies them the right to discuss fees for the services/surgeries they provide, or to unionize as others can in order to be paid reasonable fees that cover their costs and provide them a profit based on their education/experience/and service being provided, the Federal Government and HHS is free to exploit their Professions. Failing to go after the Health Insurance Companies that have for decades exploited the providers of health care and the insureds. And now, without legislation in the PPACA that allows them to, the Federal Government has advised Health Insurers that they will bail them out if they lose money on the "exchange plans" they provide. What a bunch of you know what. These insurance companies are charging premiums high In many instances with higher deductibles, fewer provider and hospital choices and higher out of pocket costs and "IF" they lose money on these sub--standard policies; we the taxpayer, once again bail THEM out. What a crock. What a bunch of corruption.
It is these Companies choice whether to participate or not, deciding whether it will be profitable or not. If they make the wrong decision, I fail to see where it is the taxpayers responsibility to bail them out.

They won't lose, but we will likely still give them bail out money. We taxpayers and those of us that had good, affordable insurance will once again be the losers.

You don't have to be liberal or conservative to understand this. The subject of health care and health insurance should be the most bipartisan subject.