Obamacare is such a political millstone that Republicans need to do very little for voters to hold Democrats responsible come Election Day — pointing out how often an incumbent voted with President Barack Obama is enough, writes veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove in
The Wall Street Journal.
Democrats had supposed the Affordable Care Act would have become a campaign selling point — "something whose time is come" in the words of North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan and proof that Democrats had done "the right thing" in the words of Colorado Sen. Mark Udall, writes Rove.
In fact, the White House is playing down the upcoming open-enrollment period, and many Americans who are currently covered will see their premiums rise. In Colorado, some 22,000 policyholders will lose their existing insurance, and providers are pulling out of some states, says Rove.
"Obamacare is re-emerging as a major liability for the Democratic Senate that passed it," he writes.
Some 54 percent of those polled in an Oct. 2 Gallup survey said the president's signature health care program had hurt them, while 27 percent said it had helped them.
The plan's failure also plays into voters' concerns that the government is biting off more than it can chew. In a Sept. 7 Gallup survey, some 54 percent of Americans agreed that "government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses" against 41 percent who felt the opposite, Rove writes.
And a record high 42 percent answered "not very much" when asked by Gallup "how much trust and confidence" they had in the federal government, with 17 percent answering "none at all."
Added to a series of other scandals and blunders that has plagued the administration, "Obamacare has contributed to undermining people's confidence in the liberal vision of a beneficent, effective, all-knowing, all-doing centralized state," writes Rove.
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