Ben Domenech explores in an essay for The Federalist website how the ongoing Obamacare debacle could have a long-term impact on one of the Democratic Party’s key selling points.
President Obama’s signature domestic policy may have accomplished something previously unthinkable: taking an issue where one party had a dominant hold on public opinion, and reversing it in favor of the opposing party.
If the latest poll numbers and enrollment figures are to be believed, we could be witnessing a political achievement unequaled in modern political history: the complete demolition of one party’s long-term dominance on an issue area – the Democrats’ ownership of the health care issue – in the space of a few months. Quinnipiac finds that young people trust Republicans in Congress more on health policy than the president; that a plurality of Hispanics, long the most pro-Obamacare faction, are now opposed to the law; and that overwhelming majorities (70+ percent) of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents are in favor of delaying the law. …
… Had the administration admitted its management failure before the exchanges launched, or traded a delay of implementation in the course of negotiation, it could’ve taken a political hit, but avoided the policy failure. Perhaps it’s the curse of second-term hubris: Obama has no intention of dismantling the one significant domestic policy he’s pushed through for the sake of a few Democratic red state Senators. He thinks what he’s achieved with the law is too important to sacrifice – and in the end, that may make the law even more vulnerable.
