Two years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare and Barack Obama has still failed to make the sale with the American people as a USA Today/Gallup polls of swing states find a "clear majority of registered voters" in Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, call the passage of Obamacare a "bad thing".The health care overhaul that President Obama intended to be the signature achievement of his first term instead has become a significant problem in his bid for a second one, uniting Republicans in opposition and eroding his standing among independents.
In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of the nation's dozen top battleground states, a clear majority of registered voters call the bill's passage "a bad thing" and support its repeal if a Republican wins the White House in November. Two years after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act— and as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments about its constitutionality next month — the president has failed to convince most Americans that it was the right thing to do.
Bad news for Mitt Romney in that same poll is that many see Obamacare as Romneycare "on steroids" which may explain why the turnout of Republicans in the primary states Romney has won has been massively lower when compared to the numbers in the 2008 primaries.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air states "Don’t forget one last thing, too. Democrats purposefully front-loaded the benefits of ObamaCare in 2010 in a desperate attempt to avoid a beating in the midterms."
That is a good point but there is another point to be made on the back end of Obamacare and that is the 20 tax increases to everyday American voters that were loaded into Obamacare and many of them specifically set up to not go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election.
A few examples of those below:
2. Obamacare Individual Mandate Excise Tax (takes effect in Jan 2014)
3. Obamacare Employer Mandate Tax (takes effect Jan. 2014)
4. Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income (Tax hike of $123 billion/takes effect Jan. 2013)
5. Obamacare Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (Tax hike of $32 bil/takes effect Jan. 2018)
6. Obamacare Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax (Tax hike of $86.8 bil/takes effect Jan. 2013)
9. Obamacare Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka “Special Needs Kids Tax” (Tax hike of $13 bil/takes effect Jan. 2013)
10. Obamacare Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers (Tax hike of $20 bil/takes effect Jan. 2013)
11. Obamacare "Haircut" for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI (Tax hike of $15.2 bil/takes effect Jan. 2013)
13. Obamacare elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D (Tax hike of $4.5 bil/takes effect Jan. 2013)
17. Obamacare Tax on Health Insurers (Tax hike of $60.1 bil/takes effect Jan. 2014)
18. Obamacare $500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives (Tax hike of $0.6 bil/takes effect Jan 2013)
The numbers missing above are the Obamacare taxes that took effect immediately or before the 2012 presidential election.
Obamacare will not get more popular and is very likely to get far more unpopular as voters learn more about it.
In February 2011, I predicted that Obamacare would be an albatross around Obama's neck and would be used against him in his bid for reelection and polling is showing it to be a liability Obama may not recover from.
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