In April, the Real Clear Politics' average of polls showed 47 percent of Americans opposed ObamaCare, while 41 percent supported it — a 6-percentage-point edge for opponents of the president's health care law, which at the time was still months away from implementation.
The latest average of polls, less than two months into the law's rollout, shows 57 percent opposing ObamaCare, with 38 percent supporting it — an enormous 19-point gap between opponents and supporters.
For years, GOP warnings about ObamaCare were about something that had not yet arrived. People had not experienced it, did not have friends who had experienced it and didn't fully understand what it was. Many tuned out the Republican alarms.
Now that has changed. Millions of Americans are unhappy with what they have experienced under ObamaCare — canceled policies, higher premiums and sky-high deductibles. They also are much more likely to believe predictions of future problems. They've seen what has already happened and now know it can get worse.
So how can it get worse? So far, ObamaCare has upended the individual market for health insurance, which covers about 10 million people. The next step, according to the respected health care analyst Robert Laszewski, will likely come in the small-employer market, meaning businesses with anywhere between two and 50 employees. That covers about 45 million people.
Under ObamaCare, the small employers who offer their workers health coverage will be “required to comply with the same essential benefit mandates, age-rating changes and pre-existing condition reforms the individual market faces,” Laszewski says. “That means essentially all small-group policies cannot continue as they are — they have to be discontinued.”
In the small-group market, Laszewski predicts many employers will use a feature in the law that allows them to keep their current plans for about a year. But then: “They will likely increase employee premiums and deductibles to keep the wolf from the door for maybe another year.” And after that: They will “hope for a rescue party.”
It has become impossible to defend President Obama's promise that his health care scheme would make the system work “better for everybody.” It's also impossible to defend his claim that ObamaCare would “cut the average family's premium by about $2,500 per year.”
The unavoidable truth is that ObamaCare will hurt millions of Americans; the only question is how many.
“The redistribution of wealth has always been a central feature of the law,” writes The New York Times' John Harwood. “Throughout the process, (the law's authors) knew that some level of redistributing wealth — creating losers as well as winners — was inescapable.”
The problem is, President Obama and his Democratic allies neglected to tell the public.
In 31⁄2 years, millions of voters, no matter what doubts they might have had, thought it best to give ObamaCare a chance to work. That's why they didn't respond to the GOP's dire warnings. But now they've seen what ObamaCare can mean in their lives. And they won't be buying any more promises.
