GREG SARGENT WASHINGTON POST (1)
In an interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd, President Obama apologized to those who have seen insurance cancelled due to Obamacare, conceding many Americans had been misled by his vow that they’d keep plans they like.
“I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation, based on assurances they got from me,” Obama said. “We’ve got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and that we’re going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this.”
All that said, I still say folks are missing something fundamental about how the White House and Dems view the politics of Obamacare. Republican glee about the rollout is largely rooted in polls showing continued majority disapproval. This, from Obama’s interview, is enormously important in understanding what is really going on:
“We, in good faith, have been trying to take on a health care system that has been broken for a very long time. And what we’ve been trying to do is to change it in the least disruptive way possible…everybody is acting as if the existing market was working…the average increase on premiums in this individual market for somebody who kept their health care for awhile, the average increase was double digits. If they actually got sick and used the insurance , they might find the next year their premiums had gone up. Or the insurer might have dropped them altogether, because now they had a preexisting condition.”
The Obama team believes the middle of the country — even some of those who “disapprove” — does not want to return to the old system, is taking a “wait and see” attitude on Obamacare, and does not share the right’s view that the law is such a monstrous failure that it must be eliminated immediately, with little regard for what replaces it. The GOP political calculation does not take into account the willingness of many in the middle to take the long view: The health system’s problems run deep and won’t get fixed overnight; the party seen trying to fix it will get rewarded, however grudgingly; the one that blocks all solutions will get punished.
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The rollout fiasco is creating a concrete political problem that wasn’t there before. Perhaps public patience will run out. Perhaps the law will fail over time, leading to political disaster. But Republicans have yet to reap any political rewards from the current problems, and it’s still possible the White House’s long term read of public sentiment will prove right. They’ve been right before.
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* UNINSURED NOT USING EXCHANGES: Gallup finds:
In the midst of widespread news coverage of problems with the federal health exchange website, relatively few uninsured Americans (18%) — the primary target population for the exchanges — have so far attempted to visit an exchange website. The percentage is slightly higher, 22%, among uninsured Americans who say they plan to get insurance through the exchanges.Of course, there are still over four months to go until the enrollment deadline, and previous health reforms have shown folks sign up late. But it seems very clear the first round of enrollment numbers will be painfully low.
GREG SARGENT WASHINGTON POST (2)
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Let’s face it, the spin war over initial low enrollment figures just doesn’t matter that much. Because the story here is the same as it always was: All that matters is whether the policy works in the long run.
If it does, then all of the spin of the moment — low enrollment proves the law is in total collapse! Red state Dems are fleeing the wreckage wholesale! — will be forgotten entirely, and Republicans will have to readjust to a political landscape in which the law is working for lots and lots of people. If it doesn’t — if the website doesn’t work in the new year, or if enrollment figures remain too low over time, causing the exchanges to collapse – then all bets will be off anyway.