Since 2000, public support for the idea that the federal government should ensure that all Americans have health coverage has decreased markedly. The trend is especially strong among Republicans and independents, but it holds true for Democrats as well.
In a Thursday post, American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman focused on the “truly spectacular propaganda campaign” from anti-Obamacare forces and how it’s not only further reduced Republican backing for universal health coverage but enhanced the GOP’s status as “the party of ‘I got mine, and the rest of you can go to hell.’”
From Waldman’s post (bolding added except in second paragraph):
In public opinion, the battle over the Affordable Care Act has come to a stalemate. Depending on how you ask the question, a majority of the public disapproves of the law, but a majority also doesn't agree with Republicans that it should be repealed…But there's something remarkable in this new article in the New England Journal of Medicine that…represents a significant shift in how some Americans think about health care:
In 2007, during the presidential primary season, public support for the view that the federal government has a responsibility to make sure all Americans have health insurance coverage was at 64% (Gallup, 2007). By 2014, this number had declined to 47% (Pew, January–February 2014).
…[There] has been a truly spectacular propaganda campaign, full of lies and fear-mongering, meant to fill Americans with fear and hatred of [the Affordable Care Act]. In fact, unless somebody can correct me, I don't think there's ever been a campaign against a piece of legislation that even approaches this magnitude...
Prior to Barack Obama's election, the idea that the government shouldn't bother making sure all people have health coverage is something that most Republicans believed. But now it's something that nearly all Republicans believe. There has been a significant movement among independents, but given that there are very few "true" independents, I'm guessing that most of that comes from the Republican-leaning independents.
That monumental propaganda campaign may not have killed the law, but it bought this: the GOP is now, more emphatically than ever, the party of "I got mine, and the rest of you can go to hell." Ayn Rand is smiling.
