March 31, 2014
The Washington Post is still having a hard time understanding Obamacare. It repeated the silliness about the exchanges needing young people to sign up. (The issue is health, not age, as we have been trying to explain to elite reporters for years.)
A front page article on the political impact of Obamacare told readers:
“Still, Democrats may be disappointed if they expect the newly insured to emerge as a politically powerful constituency, as senior citizens did for Medicare. Robert J. Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health, said polls suggest that nine of 10 people who vote in midterm elections are insured. Thus, they are unlikely to benefit from the law.”
This is not true. Just as tens of millions of people who file no claims in the course of a year benefit from having insurance, the people who already have insurance benefit from Obamacare. They now are in a situation where if they lose their job or decide to quit they will still be able to get insurance. That was not previously true, especially if a worker or someone in their family has a serious medical condition.
The political benefit of this ability to buy insurance outside of employment will depend on the extent to which people are aware of it. Insofar as major media outlets try to hide what is arguably the most important feature of Obamacare, it will not benefit the Democrats politically. However that is a function of media coverage of the law, not the law itself.
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