Wait, what? Obamacare hasn’t been repealed? Why didn’t someone tell us?
Nearly half of all Americans believe the health care reform law has already been repealed or aren’t sure one way or the other, a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows.
Fifty-two percent of Americans believe — correctly — that the law has not been repealed, the poll shows. But 22 percent think the law has been repealed, and 26 percent aren’t sure.
The results come after a month of conflicting headlines: Republicans successfully voted to repeal the law in the House; repeal failed in the Senate; some judges have struck down the law; other judges have upheld it. And House Republicans defunded part of the law in their continuing resolution — which the Senate hasn’t addressed yet.
In other news, 26 percent of Americans aren’t sure what repealed means.
(Via: Outside the Beltway)
March 1st, 2011 | 11:54 am
I’d be interested to know what people think about this term “ObamaCare.” It seems to suggest that the legislation was crafted and instituted simply by Obama. Since this would be a perversion of the facts with a all-too-transparent political motivation, what should we make of Joe Carter’s persistent usage of the term?
Of course, if responsible language doesn’t matter at First Things, I’ll just think of this as more of Joe Carter’s fundy tea-bagger patois.
March 1st, 2011 | 12:02 pm
Of course, if responsible language doesn’t matter at First Things, I’ll just think of this as more of Joe Carter’s fundy tea-bagger patois.
While I can understand why Obama would be ashamed of the legislation and not want his name associated with it, Obamacare is name that most Americans—Democrat and Republican—use when they refer to the law.
March 1st, 2011 | 12:27 pm
The term “Obamacare” is indeed prejudicial; it implies that only one person really supports it, or attempts to present it as a personal eccentricity.
Such prejudicial labels obscure the reality of it. Which is that it is hard to see how any Christian could oppose its actuality. This program would add an entire tier of health care, over and above and in augmentation of existing and secular and religious programs. And in this way, it would thus save millions of lives of poor people.
Thus following one of Jesus’ primary goals, in fact: helping the poor, and healing the sick.
As for “repeal”? Given its consistent resurrection time after time, over and above the huge number of reverses, alleged repeals already? Most Americans are simply now waiting to see if the latest US Court decision, goes to the US Supreme Court.
March 1st, 2011 | 12:32 pm
I’ll remember Jamie and C.’s argument next time I hear “Bush tax cuts.”
March 1st, 2011 | 3:04 pm
Actually, I prefer Job-Killing Budget-Busting Abortion-Funding Fundamentally Dishonest Healthcare Act of 2009.
Does that help?
March 1st, 2011 | 4:13 pm
Following the arguments mentioned above, if our duty is to secure state-run and provided for healthcare for all (and I’m not sure that’s our duty), then clearly Obamacare is not the best way to meet that duty. It’s too expensive, to the point of injuring our ability to fund other necessary social programs; does not provide anything like the care better-designed bills could provide; and there is the moral dimension, that it makes it a near certainty that taxpayer funding will assist in abortions. I would argue that we may have a Christian duty to repeal the bill and get something better in its stead.
To the point of the original post: I’ve seen this poll posted on several liberal blogs, always with a note that says, basically, “stupid conservatives/Republicans/Fox-watchers/Beck-lovers.”
On
March 1st, 2011 | 4:18 pm
Typical tone-deafness here. The fact is that the current health-care reform legislation is the result of Obama allowing our representatives in Congress to put something together within very broad, flexible, and (at least for many liberals) frustratingly concessive guidelines. Naturally, it was a messy and complicated process, the result of which–from anyone’s perspective–is far from ideal. But now some conservative seem to want to pin the inevitable complications of the democratic process on Obama. Since misrepresentation such as these tend only to exacerbate the messiness of governing democratically, the folks engaging in this rhetoric probably deserve the bulk of what is imperfect about “ObamaCare.”
The shoe fits Joe Carter; maybe it fits others around here too.
March 1st, 2011 | 4:37 pm
pentamom’s comment is a tu quoque fallacy
The job of a good journalist is to purify language and put it to the service of the truth, not to just go along with what everyone’s been saying. Cf. “Politics and the English Language,” by George Orwell
March 1st, 2011 | 10:14 pm
We haven’t finished reading it yet. As soon as it passed, we enjoyed a 17% jump in premiums. This month Blue Shield dropped us all together.
Thanks Barry.
March 1st, 2011 | 10:22 pm
pentamom’s comment is only a tu quoque fallacy if it advances a particular argument. As it does not, it is not. It is simply a rhetorical flourish, reminding the pot that it shares something in common with the kettle. A Jewish rabbi once said something similar about logs and specks and eyes and brothers.
Of course, another rhetorical flourish is to dwell on insignificant details in order to ignore the significance of a larger fact. Not that we see any of that around here…
March 1st, 2011 | 10:49 pm
“pentamom’s comment is a tu quoque fallacy”
It isn’t any kind of fallacy because it wasn’t meant to be an argument. However, I was pointing out the irony of people who have no problem identifying policies they don’t like with political leaders they don’t like, making a precise logical case out of why we shouldn’t do that. Maybe they’re right, but pots and kettles and all that.
March 2nd, 2011 | 11:35 am
Should we stop referring to the Code of 1804 as the Code Napoléon?
March 2nd, 2011 | 12:11 pm
As I said, typical tone-deafness here.
I made a point about responsible language. But now, it seems, I must make a point about responsible thought. To think responsibly requires attention to what is salient and distinctive about a particular case. There are similarities and there are differences, and it is a fallacy simply to focus on the similarities shared by “Obamacare,” “Bush tax cuts,” and “Code Napoleon.”
March 2nd, 2011 | 2:22 pm
C. Ehrlich, please explain the subtle distinctions that make this comment:
“The term “Obamacare” is indeed prejudicial; it implies that only one person really supports it, or attempts to present it as a personal eccentricity.”
not apply to “Bush tax cuts.” The Bush tax cuts were enacted with votes from both parties; were the result of negotiations; had massive support from the public; and were not the brainchild of one man and were certainly not a “personal eccentricity.”
On the basis of Joe’s defense that “Obamacare” is simply short hand that everyone understands, I don’t think that Jamie’s point is a reason to stop using the term, even though his(?) point is a reasonable one by itself. But I really think you can’t defend the use of “Bush tax cuts” while condemning “Obamacare” without looking pretty foolish. If it’s “tone deaf” not to realize that Obamacare casts a certain light on the health care financing law, what is it not to realize that invoking “Bush tax cuts Bush tax cuts Bush tax cuts” every time someone doesn’t want to raise the current tax rates, casts a certain light on tax policy?
March 3rd, 2011 | 11:30 am
“The fact is that the current health-care reform legislation …”
One number might be higher than 52%, the notion that this is primarily about health care, when in actuality, it’s about health care insurance.
All too many people believe (or peddle the belief) that what’s up for grabs here is health care. The US already provides excellent medical care to the injured, the sick, and those who aspire to avoid either.
The problem is with a lack of honest insurance, and choices for medical care if one is not very rich.
Mr Carter and many others need schooling: please refer to all this as health insurance reform.
March 3rd, 2011 | 12:42 pm
A good point, Todd.
March 4th, 2011 | 12:19 am
I move we take a breather from the blather about labels, and speak about the substantive point of the article–about half our people are misguided about the status to this bill, whatever you call it.
Not really much of a surprise. The average attention span of the US citizen is about 30 seconds. Which is why we have Obama. He begins each speech with revisionist history which would not stand the scrutiny of even rudimentary historical awareness. He twists history to define an issue in a certain way, after which his proposed non-solutions to incorrectly-defined problems seem all too plausible.
And, of course, this short attention span is why we also have Obamacare. Which is not a misleading term, it’s simply a new word which has a specific meaning in our language, by common agreed usage. In other words, it has the same status as every other word we use! Get over this pointless twaddle about the word, people, and let’s use our energy to debate real issues. God knows we have plenty of them!
March 5th, 2011 | 1:55 pm
Joe, I can second your motion, but we will need to focus a longer attention span across the spectrum and not only those matters you and FT criticize.
The phenomenon of Mr Obama began with Mr Reagan and continued with all the presidencies since. By nature, the hermeneutic of television/new media avoids real issues. If you can’t distill it into 140 characters or 15 seconds, it’s useless.
The simple truth is that American citizens know the health insurance system is broken, and has been for years. The GOP never offered a way to fix it, and how are we to interpret the virulent opposition to insurance reform as anything more than a tantrum?
Constitutionally, the GOP lacks the votes to get much of any insurance reform undone. And as long as they stand up for their cronies on Wall Street and continue attacking (largely) women’s unions, I don’t see them making any progress in 2012.
You want real issues? You’d better inform the GOP frontrunners. They’re talking about Kenya and Poland this week. Good luck with that. The Dems may be crass and incompetent, but the GOP is a comedy routine waiting for its next sex scandal.
Personally, I think insurance reform under Mr Obama has been far too conservative. But he’s blocking any shift to the Right and the corporations are blocking any real reform. So we hjave a little nudge nobody is very happy with. That’s called compromise.
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