I estimate that half the people who will be unhappy losing the mandate are the ones who wanted the mandate back when Obama opposed it. I won’t say all were Hillary or Edwards supporters but probably major overlap. The other half are Democrats who flipped based on Obama changing his position.

stockholm syndrome or sheep…….hard to say which

Look at this from the standpoint of the R judges: 80% of R voters and 55% on I voters will be pissed off with you if the entire law is upheld. Plus, you will have pissed away the opportunity to really screw a D president who claims to be a constitutional lawyer.

I will be flabbergasted if they uphold the entire law.

On edit: But I have been flabbergasted before.

O/T, but hey, is it just me?

Wendy Davis had a post up on MyFDL about the Van Jones book salon. Went to check out the latest comments, but it suddenly no longer shows up on the list of recent MyFDL posts. Went to my account activity and clicked on the thread title to go to my last comment. Got a message: Page Not Found. (Similar to a 404 message, but not quite the same. No 404 mention, and stylistically looks more like an FDL site-specific message.)

This happen to anybody else?

If so, got any ideas what happened, and why? Would FDL really take down a thread from a popular and respected poster, a thread which had several dozen or more comments, just because it might poop a little on a Veal Penner like Van Jones?

BTW: Also seems to me that we have a new FDL mod who is a little quick on the trigger finger using the “don’t attack a poster” button. Again, is that just me?

A question that should have been asked:

“Do you feel you understand this legislation and the policy implications well enough to have an informed opinion?”

ALL

Yes: 20 percent No: 70 percent Huh? Stop using big words. 10 percent

It is difficult for me to make much sense of this with out knowing what percentage of the sample self identified as R’s, D’s and I’s.

It would be much more interesting to me if the happy / unhappy percentages were based on Obama voters or McCain voters.

Count me as happy only if they toss the mandate.

Jon,

From your chart -

35% of Dems are unhappy with law as is – perhaps they want Medicare for all – if so, why would the 35% not be unhappy with ACA upheld except for the mandate?

Both…

I have no love for the ACA’s embrace of private insurance companies over single-payer. But I do believe it represents an incremental improvement over the mess that we currently have trying to insure Americans against the costs of catastrophic illness. And people who would be unhappy if only the mandate got thrown out probably recognize that ACA depends (like other social insurance programs) on universal participation, so that sick people aren’t the only ones paying into the system. And I frankly think you’re delusional if you think the outcome of an ACA collapse would be Medicare for All rather than a return to the extremely inequitable system we have now.

Censosrship is the enemy of the truth… and the enemy of the American people.

A bit of a sidebar, but who are Republicans? Why do they have to be that way? I don’t geddit.

(Not advocating for the Democrats, mind you. They’re all insane.)

BP…

I just found the diary.

It is important to remember that exactly four years ago then candidate Obama was running against the idea of an individual mandate.

Yep.

Apparently not only has Obama’s position on the mandate shifted radically, but he has managed to shift the bulk of his base’s opinion of the mandate with it. Obama’s shift and the partisan nature of this fight has caused base Democrats to develop a frankly bizarre attachment to the individual mandate.

I was amazed since the end of 2009. Then the alleged stalwarts of the liberal cause like Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich were for it, too. Dean wanted us to support the health insurance bailout simply to be contrary to the republicans, who just happen to be against it this time around. Kucinich got a ride on Air Force One. It appears Grayson didn’t even need a ride on Air Force One. And they’ve both since been jerrymandered, apparently getting absolutely nothing for their having sold out to the insurance industry.

The democrat rank-and-file’s quick embrace of the conservative concocted mandate is a sad commentary of our country’s apparent inability to think critically, and oppose the government. I firmly believe that the vast majority of people supporting the mandate now would just as vigorously support anything Obama and the democrats do, just so long as it’s ever so slightly less severe than the working and middle class carnage that republicans routinely propose (the same policies that democrats of the future will be proposing once republicans move even further to the right).

Tomorrow’s democratic politicians will be to the right of Mitt Romney, and some rank-and-file democrats will support them out of fear, others because they are caught in the fervor and simply can’t tell the difference.

Mark me as a D, not one the the faux D’s of today, but a real one, who would cheer the destruction of the whole shittaree.

If one is predicting the supreme court’s behavior on the basis of their allegiance to corporate interests, one should expect them to uphold the mandate and strike down the medicaid expansion.

I.e. the worst of all possible worlds…

I think thats a real posibility.

Obama represents corporate interests… they wish to repay him for his loyalty and service to them

“… the vast majority of people supporting the mandate…”

probably have insurance through their employer and think they will keep it on comparable terms. They probably think their premiums would go down if all those freeloaders were paying into the system.

I doubt there will be any reduction in premiums and I am certain that any reductions would not be passed along to employees.

Yet another poll?

I’d bet SCOTUS had made up their minds before the oral arguments. They’re biding their time to make it appear , following the announcement, that they had actually poured through ACA from stem to stern. It will turn out that wasn’t necessary after all.

Another question: Did your congressman and senator read it all before voting on it?

I hope that odious shituation comes to pass. all the more reason to seize the fight for single payer or Medicare for all. outflank the corporate stooge Obama.

We don’t have a mandate now and 85% of the population has health coverage. Are they all sick?

Also, as someone who has been uninsured for the most part since 2007, I resent the assumption that I’m not paying into the system. I pay payroll taxes which help to fund Medicare and SSDI and I pay federal and state taxes (and yes, I always pay since I have no dependents or major deductions) that help to fund Medicaid programs that I am not eligible for.

I think the mandate is fair but I also support subsidies for those that can’t afford health care. Everyone having insurance would eliminate problems like the hikes that hospitals like to blame on the uninsured.

Although I think Obama did a crappy job with his grand compromise. By failing to create a large pool to compete with private insurance he basically sold health care consumers(all of us at one time or another) down the river. The small state pools will look like Medicaid. A larger federal pool would have been closer to Medicare and would have allowed those that wished to to opt in at a competitive price(thus forcing the private market to compete fairly or lose their base.)

This is a reminder of the true power of the bully pulpit. A President’s position can’t sway the whole country, but it can have a huge power to sway the President’s base. We saw similar dynamics with support among Obama’s base for the Libya war and same-sex marriage going up significantly after he spoke out in favor of them. A president can easily get his own base to become invested in a particular position, even if just a few years ago the same president’s campaign was spending millions running ads saying it was a bad idea.

I think the long term effects of the bully pulpit strategy can be seen in the issue of unauthorized immigration.

Look at all the other industrialized countries, and immigration is strictly controlled. You want to immigrate? They have a point system or something similar where your usefulness to the country in question is quantified in one final number. If they don’t need you, you can’t immigrate. If you choose to illegally immigrate by overstaying a visitor’s/tourist’s visa, etc., there are actual repercussions, unlike the USA, where non-compliance is now cheered (and ironically the same people who cheer that also vilify those who can’t afford health insurance for being “free riders”).

The other industrialized countries also enjoy better working wages.

Hoodwinking “progressives” over the individual mandate is now child’s play. Liberals have long since been fooled over immigration. It only helps big businessmen by adding more workers into the system, more desperate workers who are accustomed to third world mistreatment, which in turn makes American employers more accustomed to abusing their work force.

I realize that a lot of people here may support unrestricted immigration as much as democratic loyalists, but I’ve no reservation over denouncing anymore than I have no reservations over denouncing President Obama and the democrats’ policies and our corporate collusive two party system.

I partially agree, but the DREAM Act covers young people with lots of potential who the U.S. has already invested significant resources to educate. Conceivably they might take a job from a citizen, but they are still a net plus to the domestic economy, unlike when jobs get exported to Mexico or Asia.

More of the red-team blue-team mentality. In reality, the individual mandate getting struck down is the best thing that could happen to Obama and the Dems. It will never be popular.

Obama argued that if health insurance were readily available, a fair deal, fairly priced, and affordable, everyone would buy it, and many people voting for Obama were equally optimistic that their fellow Americans wanted to work together for the good of all the American people.

Since Obama took office we have learned:
- conservatives are opposed to all Americans doing well
- conservatives are in it only for themselves, the rest be damned
- conservatives are totally opposed to their being held responsible
- insurers know conservatives as cheats and chiselers
- conservatives are determined to make any idea they had supported by Obama be a total failure and thus because Obama proposed a private insurance system to cover everyone, Republicans are now committed to denying insurance to half the population even it is drives up costs dramatically

In short, the mandate is the stick to make conservatives be Americans and without it, conservatives will be anti-American to destroy health care in America.

Rather than representing incremental progress, the mandate to purchase corporate health insurance serves to enshrine the practice of having a third party get between those who need care and those who provide care while dictating the terms of that care. In other words, corporate insurance companies provide no value for the money and often only act as obstructionists to providing care.

Insurance premiums continue to rise in Massachusetts. According to a study published in the American Journal of Medicine, Romneycare has had no effect on bankruptcies due to medical bills. Obamacare, based as it is on Romneycare, will probably perform the same way and it will leave 23 million people uninsured.

I have no doubt that this law will be used to argue for the privatization of Medicare rather than be used as a stepping stone to achieving Medicare for All. I believe that much of the support for the mandate in 2008 was based upon having a “government option” which was interpreted by many as a program similar to Medicare. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

So, yeah, the bully pulpit works but I can’t get excited when it’s used for programs that I believe will be used against us and for mandating that everyone buy corporate products. But then, I’m not a tribalist.

Apparently not only has Obama’s position on the mandate shifted radically…

Jon, that was a very diplomatic choice of words. I would have said that Obama was lying about being against the mandate from the beginning. But then, it was an election year – so I guess the dis-ingenuousness is to be expected. I actually feel pity for the folks who think that Obama’s recent moves to the Left (Gay Marriage, the DREAM act)are indicative of how a second Obama term will be. My gut tells me that anyone who buys this “New and Improved Obama in Progressive Packaging” will be severely disappointed after Nov. 5th.