Wednesday, June 27, 2012
As we eagerly await the Supreme Court’s decision on the
constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a.
Obamacare, expected shortly after 10 a.m. Thursday morning, much of the
political Left remains mystified by the health-care law’s continued
unpopularity.
According to an Associated Press/GfK poll released last
week, 47 percent of Americans oppose the health-care law, while just 33 percent
support it. Similarly, a Rasmussen presidential-election poll released just
this week found that 54 percent of likely voters want the law repealed. And
even more devastating, a New York Times/CBS News poll, which traditionally
skews Democratic, found that fully two-thirds of Americans wanted either the
individual mandate or the entire law to be found unconstitutional.
In the face of this ongoing opposition, the media has
trotted out the usual excuses. First, the public doesn’t understand all the
good things the health-care bill will supposedly do for them. As Chris Cillizza
said on MSNBC, “People don’t know what they want.” They point to surveys
showing that Americans express confusion about what the law would or would not
do. Other surveys show that some benefits of the law, such as allowing children
to stay on their parents’ policy until age 26 or guaranteeing coverage for
individuals with preexisting conditions, are quite popular, even if the overall
bill is not.
Thus, the Left continues to cling to the idea that the
health-care law will eventually become popular once the public figures it all
out. True, they originally thought that the bill would “become more popular
after passage than it was before passage,” as Ezra Klein suggested. Then, they
thought that it would become popular once some of the reforms took effect. “I
think that health care, over time, is going to become more popular,” David
Axelrod told us. Now, bizarrely, Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne claims
that the bill will actually become more popular if the Court strikes it down.
Or maybe the public isn’t stupid; rather, they’ve just
been brainwashed by a barrage of anti-Obamacare ads. Last week, the New York
Times rolled out a front-page story highlighting a study that, in purchases of
television advertising, opponents of the health-care law had outspent
supporters three-to-one, $235 million to $70 million. That gap has shrunk in
the last year, though: Since July 1, 2011, opponents spent roughly $27 million
on television ads, compared with $12 million by supporters. Moreover, the study
only included spending up to March of this year, and therefore does not include
a new $20 million contract that HHS signed with a public-relations firm in May.
Of course, focusing on just television advertising
ignores the many other avenues that supporters have used to sell their message,
such as HHS mailings to seniors. There is also the virtually unending stream of
pro-Obamacare stories in the mainstream media. And, there was the president
himself, who has given at least 144 speeches, talks, or press conferences
devoted to the bill.
This is roughly the same argument that liberals fell back
on after they failed to recall Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. Their message
didn’t lose on the merits; it was defeated unfairly by evil corporate interests
who pulled the wool over voters’ eyes. (Ignore the fact that big corporate
interests such as the pharmaceutical industry were recruited by the Obama
administration to support the health-care bill.) If the Court tosses out all or
part of the health-care law, expect to hear the same litany of villains:
Citizens United, the Koch brothers, Karl Rove . . .
But the American people aren’t really dumb. And they
haven’t been deluded by 30-second television ads.
Of course, Americans respond positively to parts of the
law that appear to give them more benefits or that help the disadvantaged,
especially when those provisions are presented to them as nearly cost-free. But
Americans are also aware of the bill’s many failings: It increases federal
spending, taxes, and debt. It adds new burdens to struggling businesses, making
it harder for them to grow and hire new workers. It drives up the cost of
health insurance, especially for the young and healthy, while putting in place
structures that will almost inevitably lead to the rationing of care.
The average American adds up the costs and benefits and
decides that, on the whole, they don’t want the law. It’s not bad marketing;
it’s bad law.
But there is a much deeper reason why so many Americans
reject Obamacare. They see it as an enormous expansion of federal power,
contrary to the Constitution, American historical tradition, and their own
innate dislike of big government. There is a reason why the individual mandate
is the most unpopular aspect of the law.
If the Court upholds the government’s power to force you
to buy health insurance, is there any limit to this power? Is there anything
the government can’t require you to do? That is why the analogy of a “broccoli
mandate,” while pooh-poohed by liberal legal experts, struck such a chord. It’s
not that the public expects the broccoli police to appear on their doorstep
anytime soon, but they understand that unrestrained and unlimited government
power is a thing to be feared. Indeed, Gallup has found that nearly two-thirds
of Americans believe that big government is the biggest threat to the future of
this country, far more than either big business (26 percent) or big labor (8
percent).
That’s a dimension of the American character missed by
those on the left who see government as nothing more than a benevolent force
that goes about dispensing goodies and righting wrongs. The essence of the
Obama administration is about the accumulation of government power, first by
the federal government itself, and secondarily by the president himself. This
desire for power explains not only the president’s policies but also his
distaste for the democratic process, particularly when it stands in the way of
his doing what he thinks must be done.
In a way, the health-care bill is typical of the entire
Obama presidency. It asserts the power of government over individuals, and the
power of the federal government over the states.
That is why Thursday’s Supreme Court decision is about
far more than just one bad health-care law. If the bill — or at least the
individual mandate — is struck down, the Court will have said that the power of
government over our lives is not unlimited. There are some lines that
government cannot cross, even when well-intentioned.
That would be a decision that the American people will
cheer.
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