A majority of Americans still don’t like ObamaCare, according to new polling. As the new enrollment period kicks off, headlines about rising premiums and collapsing state co-ops may signal that implosion is near.
According to the latest Investor’s Business Journal/TIPP poll, 52 percent of Americans oppose ObamaCare – a 7 point rise since August. Some 52 percent of independents and 92 percent of Republicans oppose the healthcare law compared with less than 20 percent of Democrats.
Those who were supposed to benefit most, it appears, hold more negative views of the healthcare law, as IBD reports:
Interestingly, ObamaCare polls far worse among the middle class and less educated — who are supposed to be its main beneficiaries.
Fully 58% of those making between $50,000 and $75,000 say they oppose the law, the highest of any income group. Likewise, 59% of those with less than a college degree oppose ObamaCare, compared with 47% for those with a degree.
Regionally, opposition is strongest in the West (59%) and weakest in the Northeast (48%).
Americans have a lot to take issue with. Clients are facing sticker shock from rising premiums and those without healthcare are looking at the costs and thinking about taking the risk of remaining uninsured. As we’ve reported, healthcare premiums for those with ObamaCare are up 7.5 percent. This is explained by the pool of enrollees, which tends to be older and sicker than the general population. .
The Administration is expecting an uphill battle to get people to enroll this year and has admitted that it will fail to meet enrollment projections by half. However, its worse than just low enrollment, as Charlotte Hays explains, the writing is on the wall for President Obama’s namesake healthcare reform law, triggering the death spiral that was predicted during the pre-Affordable Care Act days when the merits of this law -if any – were being debated:
The hardest battle was always going to be young healthy people to buy policies that were expensive but essential to keeping ObamaCare afloat. One young woman profiled by CBS represents many others opting out of ObamaCare. The 26-year-old will lose coverage under her parents plan, but she can’t afford to pay up to $250 per month for an ObamaCare plan. Given that her income is getting tugged in the many directions, an unaffordable ObamaCare plan is not an expense she plans to add to her budget, noting "Being a graduate student and living in D.C., and kind of barely making ends meet now, it's just hard to factor in the cost of an extra bill.” She’s not alone.
The impact of this missing generation from ObamaCare is devastating, as the Wall Street Journal explains:
HHS reports that half are between the ages of 18 and 34 and nearly two-thirds are in excellent or very good health. The exchanges won’t survive actuarially unless they attract this prime demographic: ObamaCare’s individual mandate penalty and social-justice redistribution are supposed to force these low-cost consumers to buy overpriced policies to cross-subsidize everybody else…
The HHS survey shows three of four ObamaCare-eligible uninsured people think having coverage is important—but four of five say they couldn’t fit their share of the premiums into their budgets even after the subsidies. They’re not poor; they tend to have jobs in industries like construction, retail and hospitality but feel insecure financially; and they prioritize items like paying down debt, car repairs or saving to buy a home over insurance.
The law’s failure to appeal to the young and rising middle class is already cascading through the insurance markets.
ObamaCare is slowly strangling itself as the fundamental flaws are exposed and wreak havoc on our lives and on the healthcare industry. This big, interventionist government reminds us of us that there’s a reason we believe big government is a big problem.