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By the incredible margin of 65.6 percent – 34.4 percent, voters in Ohio approved an amendment to “preserve the freedom of Ohioans to choose their health care and health care coverage.” The amendment was deliberately written so that voters would view voting for it as a way to reject of the individual mandate in “Obamacare.”
The Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate was rejected by the same electorate that also voted 61.3 percent to 38.7 percent to preserve public sector unions and their collective bargaining rights by repealing the Republican approved law, SB 5. As strongly pro-union as this electorate was, it was even more anti-individual mandate.
This also means that of the over 2 million Ohioans who went to the polls to vote to protect union rights, at least 40 percent of them also voted to oppose the individual mandate.
Forces in favor of health care reform chose not to contest the measure, because its passage would not change anything; federal law supersedes state law. But the results still show how deeply unpopular the mandate provision is with the American people. Even in an election where turnout was mainly driven by labor unions mobilizing their left leaning supporters, the idea of the individual mandate was rejected by a huge margin.
Over a year after its passage the individual mandate remains an massive albatross around the neck of the Affordable Care Act, killing popular support for the law. If only some progressive group had repeatedly tried to warn Democrats about the danger of including it in the final bill . . . oh wait . . .
Anyone saying the vote yesterday in Ohio was purely good news for the Obama 2012 campaign should keep in mind that the voters of Ohio also rejected Obama’s signature policy by roughly the same margin by which they rejected Republican Gov. John Kasich’s signature anti-union law.
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Mandate Medicare for All and see how popular it is.
I’d think that would be hugely popular.
If the mandate fails leaving in place coverage up to age 26, pre-existing conditions and other positive aspects, why wouldn’t that be good?
And if such a result does significantly diminish the profits for private health insurers, doesn’t that open the door wider for single payer?
“But the results still show how deeply unpopular the mandate provision is with the American people.”
Don’t worry, Washington Dems will never get it.
“…leaving in place coverage up to age 26, pre-existing conditions …”
No one will be able to afford these “benefits” without cost controls.
First you have to mandate taxing the rich. You do need to pay for things in this world. If you don’t have the guts to tax those who deserve to be taxed and the muscle to follow through on such taxes, then don’t propose plans that require using taxation to solve them.
We got here by raising the right to make a profit to an unbelievable sanctity, and the right to manage your own property to an unquestioned level. We got here by subsidizing the creation of expensive medical procedures and no subsidies on methods for bringing those costs down. We got here by cashiering all forms of employment but the construction industry, the service industries, and the health care industry.
You want to change that, you need to do a lot more than just vote down the method of paying for making health insurance available to everyone. Medicare for all? On what tax base? Produce the will and the jobs and the economic infrastructure that can do that, as part of your solution, or all you’re really doing is helping the Republicans to restrict health care to the healthy and the rich. And that’s the godforsaken truth.
“Anyone saying the vote yesterday in Ohio was purely good news for the Obama 2012 campaign ”
Why would anyone say that in the first place? A pro-union vote is not good news for Obama because Obama is not pro-union.
OT – The lede at HuffPo is Eddie Murphy quits as host of the Grammys? HuffPo must be competing with People mag and that ilk now. Too bad. Used to be a fairly decent news site. How long will it be before Arianna is pimping for the Kochroaches on Fox?
Jon- state based single payer a la VT is now not a possibility in OH.
It is not meaningless… and they did not contest it because it was going to pass no matter what… and if money was spent, then it would be harder for dems to ignore…
but it is worth repeating — the state of Ohio can no longer institute single payer.
Don’t you want to know the latest about Kim Kardashian? And the best bars in SF? What’s wrong with you? :)
The ONLY good news I think that Obama could get is this:
(AP) New York – Aliens have invaded the earth and abducted each and every republican and independent in the United States and taken them to Jupiter. The spokeman for the aliens Gkkrpnpko (Pronounced Gurk-arop-nop’-ko) said they will return the republicans only after Thanksgiving 2012 and only IF the ABC network re-instates the TV show “Mork and Mindy.”
That’s really funny. Thanks for the laugh.
Problem #1 – You looked at PuffHo
Problem #2 – You believe Arianna’s magical transformation into a “liberal democrat”. The first time I saw her, she was co-covering the 1996 campaign with Al Franken and she represented republicans. She’s never stopped being a money-grubber.
I could go on but if problem #1 is reversed, no other problems will follow.
whatever happened to increasing the estate tax?
no one even says those two words anymore.
the estate tax is at its lowest EVER.
cant have a health private health insurance program without a mandate or the healthy will opt out until they are sick or injured. the pooled costs would be too high.
you could have medicare for all, however, and make everyone contribute.
I am on medicare and the premium for the insurance is deducted from my social security check. How would you propose collecting the premium from all of those that do not receive a federal check?
Let’s put that “up to 26″ in perspective —— that means up to 26 for those who have parents who have health insurance.
As for pre-existing conditions, yeah, you supposedly can get health insurance, but can you afford it?
The health care bill was good only for the already comfortable. So discouraging to see how low we set the bar.
There has been a medicare deduction from my paycheck for as long as I can remember. There were other deductions too — income tax, state tax, social security. I mean . . . how to deduct is the least of the worries. We figured out deductions a long time ago.
Good news only if the Gkkrpnpko (-ians, -ites, -sians?) have a super-PAC.
Perhaps the guts to tax those who need to pay more, under single payer, could supplant the guts needed to compel individuals to buy a policy from an insurance company.
My hope is that SCOTUS will not perceive a lack of guts either way as justification to keep the mandate.
The problem with your analysis is that there are no cost controls. Sure, they could be covered but if the cost is so exorbitant, that one cannot afford the coverage, what difference does it make?
Exactly! Apparently were not all idiots like both parties think we are. People want health care they just DO NOT wanted to be forced to BUY it from some politicians big contributors ( AKA Big Health Ins.et al.). The pols don’t give a flying f*ck though what we want. We need to start dumping these turds by the boat load.
Message from Ohio: stop sellling us out to big money interests, assholes.
You’d think we could get a better class of turds for what we pay.
I suspect it would be particularly popular among all those folks demanding that the government stay out of Medicare…
It’s not hard to understand why the individual mandate is such a thing would be dreadfully unpopular. Those of us who will be affected by it understand that idea perfectly.
In a nutshell, yes. Best executive summary so far…
It better be damn unpopular because it is about taking HOMES. We’re talking pay health care or liquidate. Now, foreclosure is being acculturated into the law of the land. I’m right about this. People better fucking stand up.
Agreed, but I have to wonder…if one’s first medical bills after getting on Medicare is a quadruple heart bypass, would the person’s share of the 6 digit bill for the hospital, plus the Dr. billings (including all those rounds), anesthesia, medications, etc., wouldn’t they go broke if all they had was Medicare? Doesn’t medicare cover only 80% of billing, or is that only for the Dr. bills?
The mandate is like being required to buy a used car without checking under the hood and without knowing the price. People are clueless about what they’re going to be forced to buy. They figure they are being tricked. They are! If they weren’t, Democrats would be able to explain the bill. They still can’t.
We see the policy very differently, I guess. I wish your desire to act selfishly with respect to your contribution to the herd could be mimicked on my side by keeping my immunities to myself and letting you get sick on your own. I pay for my own health insurance and I’d like to see myself with a choice. I’ll get one under the ACA. You are removing the mechanism for the ACA to pay for itself, so I see you as killing the chance for me to get reasonable health care. So I think you suck the same way you think us people who support the mandate suck. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a Republican, killing a health care bill.