The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: repeal
Support Wanes For Repeal Of Obamacare, Surveys Suggest

Support Wanes For Repeal Of Obamacare, Surveys Suggest

By David Lauter, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — By a substantial margin, Americans disagree with the Republican argument that President Barack Obama’s healthcare law should be repealed and replaced, but several weeks of relatively good news about the law have done little to change entrenched, partisan views of it.

Those are the conclusions of two newly released public opinion surveys, one by a nonpartisan organization, the other by a leading Democratic polling firm. They suggest that the potency of GOP arguments against the law have waned, but that it continues to be a risk for Democrats in key congressional races, particularly in the South.

Nearly 3 in 5 Americans said they would prefer to see their representatives in Congress “work to improve” the healthcare law rather than “work to repeal the law and replace it with something else,” according to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation healthcare poll.

Kaiser, which has surveyed public opinion about the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, each month, found impressions of it warming slightly from the low points of November through January. Overall, however, opinions of the law remain negative, with 46 percent now having a generally unfavorable view of it and 38 percent generally positive, the poll found. Those views are sharply divided by party, as has been the case since the law passed.

A survey by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg found a similar division on the question of fixing the law versus repealing it. Among likely voters in competitive congressional districts, 52 percent say the country should “implement and fix the healthcare reform law” while 42 percent say they want to “repeal and replace” it, he found.

Compared with December, support for the “implement and fix” position has grown and sentiment for repeal has shrunk in the roughly 80 congressional districts that Greenberg surveys to analyze the battleground for this fall’s midterm election.

Independent voters in those districts, who favored repeal in December, now favor going ahead with the law, his polling indicated. Key Democratic constituency groups, such as college-educated women, have become more ardent in their support.

But one group stands out as bucking the trend: Voters in battleground districts in the South now support repeal by a bigger margin than they did in December, Greenberg found.

Southern opposition to the law could pose a significant problem for Democrats because three of the most competitive races in the battle for control of the Senate are taking place in Southern states: North Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana.

The battleground districts that were surveyed include very few from those three states, so the poll doesn’t shed direct light on the Senate contests. But it does reinforce what other polling has shown about the intensity of Southern opposition to Obamacare.

The Kaiser survey found that almost 6 in 10 Americans believe that the number of people signing up for coverage under the law fell below expectations, even though enrollments actually beat the forecasts by about 1 million people.

About 4 in 10 people in the survey correctly said that about 8 million people had signed up. Even among that group, however, about half said the result had been below expectations.

Partisan divisions had an effect on people’s beliefs about enrollment numbers. More than 1 in 8 Democrats significantly overestimated sign-ups while about one-third of Republicans significantly underestimated them. The number correctly choosing the 8 million figure was similar in both parties.

Those who correctly identified the number of enrollments were somewhat more likely to say the law was functioning as intended, but even among those who significantly overestimated enrollments, a majority said the law was still not working as planned.

The most reliable predictor of whether a person thought the law was working was not whether he or she could correctly identify the number of enrollments, but partisanship.

Almost 80 percent of Republicans said they believed “it’s clear the law is not working as planned.” By contrast, just more than 60 percent of Democrats took the opposing position, that “there were some early problems that have been fixed, and now the law is basically working as intended.”

Among those who remain uninsured, Kaiser found, about 40 percent said they had not signed up for coverage because of cost. Another 12 percent said they had tried to get coverage but were unable to. Only 7 percent said they would rather pay a fine than buy insurance coverage.

On another controversial aspect of the law, Americans by about 2 to 1 said they supported the requirement that health plans cover the costs of birth control. Support for that requirement was particularly strong among women and Democrats. Americans over 65 and Republicans were less likely to support it.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule later this spring on a challenge to the contraceptive requirement.

LeDawna’s Pics via Flickr

Irrational Hatred Of Obamacare Is Hard To Fathom

Irrational Hatred Of Obamacare Is Hard To Fathom

My friend Isatou has just received an invoice from Kaiser Permanente, testament to her new coverage through the Affordable Care Act — usually called “Obamacare.” She’s thrilled to finally have health insurance so she can get regular checkups, including dental care.

A reasonably healthy middle-aged woman, she knows she needs routine mammograms and screenings for maladies such as hypertension. But before Obamacare, she struggled to pay for those things. She once had to resort to the emergency room, which left her with a bill for nearly $20,000. (She settled the bill for far less, but it still left her deeply in debt.)

She is one of more than 7 million people who have signed up for health insurance through the ACA, stark evidence of the overwhelming market demand. Despite a badly bungled initial rollout, a multimillion-dollar conservative media campaign designed to discourage sign-ups, and a years-long Republican crusade against it (50 votes to change the law), millions got health insurance.

That hardly means Obamacare is a raging success. It’s much too early to know how it will affect health outcomes for the previously uninsured. But it’s abundantly clear that the ACA has already made great strides in improving access to health care. And that alone is quite an accomplishment.

Now, young adults can stay on their parents’ health insurance policies until they are 26 years old — a boon in an economy where many young folks are struggling to find decent jobs. Now, patients with previously diagnosed illnesses (“pre-existing conditions,” in insurance lingo) can’t be denied coverage. Now, the chronically ill don’t have to worry about hitting a lifetime cap that would deny them essential procedures or pharmaceuticals. Now, working folks who don’t get insurance through their employers can purchase affordable policies.

Factoring in the Medicaid expansion, the ACA has extended health care coverage to an additional 9.5 million people, according to the Los Angeles Times, which gathered data from national surveys. Needless to say, millions more would have been covered if so many Republican governors, mostly located in Southern states, had not callously refused to accept the Medicaid expansion despite the fact that it is largely paid through federal government funds.

The GOP’s relentless opposition has been puzzling. Republicans have resorted to extreme measures to try to derail Obamacare, including an implicit threat to prevent the National Football League from participating in a marketing campaign to encourage people to sign up.

Oh, did I mention 50 votes to repeal or alter the law?

Even acknowledging that our politics have become bitterly polarized, I don’t understand this one. Even taking into account the GOP’s irrational hatred for President Obama, I don’t get it. Even though I know that Republicans believe in less government, I don’t understand their approach to Obamacare.

First off, the ACA adheres to market-based ideas, many of which were first suggested by conservatives. Instead of a single-payer system like, say, Medicare, the ACA relies on private insurance companies. It adopts the individual mandate that was supported by many Republicans, including Newt Gingrich, back in the 1990s and later adopted by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.

Second, Republicans are free to offer up a health care scheme that is more in keeping with conservative principles. But the “repeal and replace” mantra is rarely heard anymore since it has become increasingly clear that the GOP has no intention of coming up with a plan to replace Obamacare. While there are various counter-proposals floating about, none has garnered the support of a majority of Republicans in Congress.

Is the ACA perfect? Absolutely not. There is much in the law that needs to be worked on, refined, improved. But the GOP doesn’t seem interested in that. Instead, its members have taken to engaging in increasingly ridiculous criticisms, including the charge that the White House has made up the number of successful enrollees.

It’s strange. Could it be that Republicans are simply furious that millions of Americans like Isatou finally have health insurance?

(Cynthia Tucker, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a visiting professor at the University of Georgia. She can be reached at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com.)

Photo: Fibonacci Blue via Flickr

Is The GOP Giving Up Tea?

Is The GOP Giving Up Tea?

WASHINGTON — The botched rollout of the health care law has called forth some good news: Republicans are so confident they can ride anti-Obamacare sentiment to electoral victory that they’re growing ever-more impatient with the Tea Party’s fanaticism. Immigration reform may be the result.

The GOP is looking like a person emerging from a long binge and asking, “Why did I do that?” The moment of realization came when last fall’s government shutdown cratered the party’s polling numbers. Staring into the abyss can be instructive. For the first time since 2010, the middle of the House Republican caucus — roughly 100 of its 233 members — began worrying less about primaries from right-wing foes and more about losing their majority status altogether.

Obamacare’s troubles reinforced the flight from the brink. House Speaker John Boehner is telling his rank-and-file that they can win the 2014 elections simply by avoiding the stupid mistakes their more-ferocious colleagues keep urging them to make. In this view, the health insurance issue will take care of everything, provided Republicans end their Tea Party fling.

In fact, it’s an illusion for the GOP to think that bashing Obamacare is an elixir, especially if Democrats embrace and defend the law. Now that its benefits are fully kicking in, Republicans should be asked persistently, “Who do you want to throw off health insurance?”

Also: Do you want to go back to denying people coverage for pre-existing conditions? And: What about those 3 million young adults now on their parents’ health plans? “Repeal Obamacare” is not as popular as it seems in GOP bastions.

Nonetheless, some illusions are useful. Boehner is using them aggressively. The immigration principles he announced at his caucus’ retreat last week in Cambridge, MD, are a breakthrough because they are potentially more elastic than they sound. This is why many immigration reform advocates were elated, and why President Obama, sensing what was coming, offered not a hint of partisanship on the issue in his State of the Union address.

The principles have been loosely described as favoring the legalization of undocumented immigrants without a path to citizenship. But what the statement actually opposes is a “special path to citizenship” for the roughly 11 million who are here illegally. Everything hangs on the implications of that word “special.”

A bill barring a path to citizenship would be a nonstarter for Democrats — and it ought to be a nonstarter for Republicans and conservatives. Creating a vast population of legal residents who lack citizenship rights undercuts the rights of those who are already citizens. It would undermine the commitment of a democratic republic to equal treatment and self-rule.

But reform advocates inside and outside the Obama administration note that even without a “special” path, many immigrants, once legalized, could find ways of gaining citizenship eventually.

Changes in visa allocations, including more generous rules on the spouses and parents of citizens, could help as many as 4 million undocumented residents, as The Washington Post‘s Pamela Constable has reported. Republicans have already signaled openness to a path for “Dreamers” — their numbers are estimated at between 800,000 and 1.5 million — who were brought to the United States illegally as children. The bill already passed by the Senate would put as many as 8 million people on a path to citizenship. A compromise that found “non-special” ways of reaching a number reasonably close to the Senate’s is now at least possible.

It’s also possible, of course, that Boehner could make a play to improve his party’s image with Latinos by appearing to be flexible at the outset but in the end appease hardliners by balking on a final bill — and try to blame Democrats for not compromising enough.

But the GOP consists of more than the Tea Party. Both business interests and conservative evangelical leaders really want a reform law. Most of the intraparty tiffs have been over tactics: whether to use shutdowns or debt-ceiling fights to achieve shared objectives. The immigration battle, by contrast, will expose more fundamental rifts among party constituencies along philosophical lines.

None of this heralds the dawn of a new Moderate Republican Age. Shifts in the Republican primary electorate and the Tea Party insurgency dragged the party so far to the right that it will take a long time to bring it within hailing distance of the middle of the road. But change has to start somewhere, and the GOP’s slow retreat from the fever swamps may turn out to be one of Obamacare’s utterly unintended effects.

E.J. Dionne’s email address is ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne

AFP Photo/Jim Watson

In Kansas, Domestic Violence Prosecutions Take A Back Seat To Politics

Update 10/14: The district attorney has agreed to hear some domestic violence cases in Topeka.

Budget cuts are usually painful for local governments, but in Topeka, Kan., a fight over money could truly hurt constituents. The mayor and city council voted Tuesday night to repeal the city’s ordinance against domestic violence, jeopardizing abuse victims’ access to justice for the sake of politics.

The decision is the result of a month of political maneuvering. Both the city and county governments in Topeka are facing budget restrictions, which prompted the county district attorney last month to stop prosecuting misdemeanors committed inside city limits — including domestic assault, battery not involving a weapon, and other crimes. In reaction, the city government is trying to pressure the county into resuming these prosecutions by making it clear that the issue is not the city’s responsibility.

“I think it draws a line in the sand,” said Dan Stanley, the interim city manager, at Tuesday’s city council meeting. “It says we will remove all ambiguity from this question, and we will negotiate from a position of strength.”

Many local governments around the country are facing a similarly difficult budget situation, leading them to make cuts to necessary programs and functions. Other cities might not make as bold a move as Topeka, but the situation demonstrates the budget crisis common elsewhere. And when cuts are made, they often disproportionately affect the people who most need help and offer a chilling representation of political priorities.

Throughout the political fight, domestic violence cases have been largely dismissed in Topeka. Since the DA’s September decision to stop prosecuting new cases, there have been at least 35 reported cases of domestic battery or assault; however, 18 of the jailed people have been released without facing charges. The city is banking on the fact that their dramatic decision to repeal the anti-domestic violence ordinance will coerce the county to once again handle the issue. For now, the situation is uncertain, and domestic violence cases are still not being prosecuted.

The move, although ostensibly based more in a budget squabble than in an intentional effort to condone violence, could have dangerous ramifications for Topeka residents. Domestic violence is already under-reported because victims often fear retaliation; now, with many of those cases being left unresolved, people experiencing domestic violence face greater risks and fewer options.

“I absolutely do not understand it,” Rita Smith, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said after the vote. “It’s really outrageous that they’re playing with family safety to see who blinks first. People could die while they’re waiting to straighten this out.”

Ideally, the county would take the city’s decision as a cue to resume prosecutions. Both governments, however, are continuing to insist that they do not have the resources necessary to carry out trials for these cases. If neither side caves and agrees to accept responsibility for prosecuting domestic violence cases, Topeka residents will continue to be in legal limbo, with potentially devastating effects on people experiencing abuse.