Skip to content

ObamaCare Supporters Decide to Not Talk About It

From today’s Politico:

hcan_480

Now, HCAN’s [Health Care for America Now] field crews are finding that the best way to support reform-friendly lawmakers is to talk about something else: jobs, the economy or other issues likely to resonate with voters more.

“We want to be flexible in talking about what is most relevant to constituents, whatever issues are most motivational,” says HCAN’s national field director, Margarida Jorge, who organizes a daily call with their partner organizations. “We can have a high level of focus on health care but also understand at times the focus is going to shift.”

HCAN activists say they are not dodging their key issue; rather, they want to keep pace with voter concerns, which have markedly shifted over the past year.

But what HCAN describes as a tactical shift reform opponents see as proof that the law is unpopular, a loser for Democrats in a tough election cycle. “Voters don’t like health reform and they know that,” says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former CBO director who now works with the American Action Forum on their Operation Healthcare Choice project. “Independents are key to control, health reform is unpopular but jobs and economy could move votes. When it comes to substance, on health reform, they’re in bad shape.”

Recent polling from the American Action Forum found low levels of support for health reform in competitive districts: in OH-16, for example, 28 percent of voters supported the new law.

Jorge describes this summer’s strategy as conscientious shift from last year, when HCAN directed partner groups to focus exclusively on health reform advocacy. “This August is not last August, where we would prescribe a certain approach” that focused solely on health reform, she tells POLITICO. “We want to be talking about what the public is thinking about. We might go into a community all set to educate about health care but, if that’s not what folks want to talk about, we’re flexible.”

Read more here. The howler here, of course, is that back when Democrats passed ObamaCare, they deluded themselves that their government take over would become wildly popular. Not so much.


Comment count on this article reflects comments made on Breitbart.com and Facebook. Visit Breitbart's Facebook Page.