Fix Health Care Policy

Heritage Intern Award Winners: Quoting “We the People” on Obamacare

Each semester, we bring together more than 60 young leaders from across the country to participate in our internship program in D.C. They are given the opportunity of practical experience working on policy research, marketing, and business, and training in communication skills like blogging and public speaking. They learn about America’s founding principles while visiting important sites including the Pentagon, National Archives, and Mount Vernon. Combining an engaging curriculum with each intern’s individual talents and passion, the Young Leaders Program prepares students for success.

This summer, we challenged the interns to use their creativity to bring conservative principles to life. Heritage President Ed Feulner selected the winning projects. Matt Lauer, Kate Adams, Kaylyn Krzemien, and Tray Smith are the second place winners. Stay tuned for the first place winner tomorrow.

The Foundry featured a great deal of commentary before and after the Supreme Court’s historic decision on Obamacare. However, each post by a Heritage expert was followed by several comments from Foundry readers, who offered their own thoughts on the decision and the health care law.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: ObamaCare, Public Opinion, repeal the law

Obamacare’s Failed First Year

“I think that health care, over time, is going to become more popular,” then-White House senior advisor David Axelrod promised David Gregory about Obamacare last September. That same month, the Health Information Campaign, founded by high-profile leftist activists including former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, spent $2 million on a national television ad campaign touting Obamcare’s first insurance mandates. Now, six months after Axelrod’s promise, and a full year after the bill was signed into law, the results are in: Obamacare is more unpopular than ever.

Look at any poll and you’ll see that Obamacare has only gotten less legitimate. Last year at this time Newsweek showed 40 percent of Americans supporting Obamacare and 49 percent opposing it. Today, only 37 percent support it while 56 percent oppose. According to Quinnipiac, after Obamacare passed last year, 44 percent of Americans approved of President Obama’s handling of health care while 50 percent opposed. Today, only 44 percent approve while opposition has grown to 56 percent. And according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, after Obamacare passed, 62 percent of Americans thought the law would either have no effect on them or make them worse off. Today that number is up to 69 percent.

The reason why President Obama and his liberal allies have failed to turn public opinion around is simple: The major claims made by the President in the effort to pass Obamacare have all been exposed as frauds, and the early implementation by his Administration has been a complete disaster. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: Obamacare anniversary, Public Opinion, repeal, Side Effects

Health Care Voters Overwhelming Favor Repealing Obamacare

The Kaiser Family Foundation polled 1,502 adults ages 18 and older, including 1,017 adults who say they voted, in the days after last Tuesday’s election. KFF allowed respondents to name, in their own words, the biggest factors influencing their vote for Congress. The top response was economy/jobs (29%), followed by voting for or against a specific party (25%), and then voting for a specific candidate (21%). Health care came in fourth at 17%.

But among those voters who said health care was the top factor influencing their vote, repealing all or parts of Obama was extremely popular. A full 71% of health care voters either want to repeal Obamacare entirely (45%) or repeal parts of the law (26%). Only 11% of health care voters (and only 16% of all voters) want to leave the law as is. Obamacare is not very popular among the entire population either KFF reports: (more…)

Tags: Kaiser Family Foundation, ObamaCare, Public Opinion, repeal the bill, voters

In the Green Room: Scott Rasmussen on Tea Parties, Obamacare’s Unpopularity

Scott Rasmussen, President of Rasmussen Reports, a widely respected polling company. For years, Rasmussen polling has helped legislators, business leaders, and the general public gain a sense of the country’s opinions on any number of important issues.

Recently, Scott teamed up with pollster Doug Schoen on a new book, entitled, “Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Transforming our Two-Party System” which delves in to what the tea party movement is, what it believes, and the impact it will have on our nation. Before a book event here at The Heritage Foundation, Scott sat down with us for a short interview. (more…)

Tags: ObamaCare, Public Opinion, Rasmussen Reports, repeal, Scott Rasmussen

Six Months Closer to Repeal

Before Obamacare was passed six months ago today, former President Bill Clinton promised a leftist horde at the Netroots Nation convention: “The minute the president signs the health care reform bill, approval will go up, because Americans are inherently optimistic.” Fast forward to last Sunday, when, after Meet the Press host David Gregory played a clip of Clinton’s promise, the former President responded: “I was wrong.”

It is rare in Washington that a politician admits they were so very, very wrong about such a huge issue, but the evidence that the American people have completely rejected Obamacare is overwhelming. Rasmussen Reports, Gallup and CNN all put opposition to Obamacare somewhere between 56% and 61%. The law is so toxic that hardcore leftists locked in tough election fights like Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) ignore the law altogether in the health care section of their campaign websites.

Anyone who has been following the news since Obamacare’s passage already knows why the law is so unpopular: billion dollar employer losses, exploding spending estimates, higher health care costs, fewer doctors, fewer choices, fewer jobs, etc. The following are just some of the specific groups that have been hit hardest by Obamacare: (more…)

Tags: ObamaCare, President Bill Clinton, Public Opinion, repeal the law, six-month anniversary, Solutions for America

The Long War of Repealing Obamacare

In the depressing aftermath of Congress’s passage of the Democratic health-care legislation, there has been an understandable temptation among conservatives to think that all their effort over the last year to derail what was coming down the tracks may have been for naught. After all, the bill did pass. The president and his allies got their signing ceremony and their victory lap, as well as a barrage of premature but predictable pronouncements from the national media that we are now witnessing a historic moment of irreversible liberal progress.

And there’s no use sugarcoating what has happened. It’s a debacle from every possible vantage point. The Democrats have created another massive entitlement program while expanding federal power and reach in a manner not seen since the heyday of Franklin D. Roosevelt. If allowed to stand, the new health-care law will tether America’s middle class to the federal government in ways that will fundamentally alter — and not for the better — the relationship between citizens and the state. The result will be worse health care, distorted politics, less medical innovation and economic vitality, and depleted wealth.

(more…)

Tags: $1.2 trillion cost, conservative opposition, doctor-patient relationship, massive entitlement program, Medicaid Expansion, Medicare cuts, ObamaCare, Public Opinion, public option, repeal

New CNN Poll: 59% Oppose Obamacare

A new CNN Opinion Research poll, conducted over the weekend as the House debated Obamacare, finds that 59 percent of Americans now stand opposed to the health care legislation in Congress. Just 39 percent of the poll’s 1,030 respondents said they favored the bill.

These numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise — even to the White House. In fact, The Washington Post reported this morning that “President Obama is set to begin an immediate public relations blitz aimed at turning around Americans’ opinion of the health-care bill.” The White House plan will be both a short-term strategy to shore up political supporters of the legislation and a long-term effort to bolster Obama’s legacy. (more…)

Tags: CNN poll, government takeover, ObamaCare, Public Opinion, repeal the bill

The Heritage Foundation Responds to Health Care Vote: Repeal

Fellow Americans,

Late last night, in a narrow and partisan vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the most significant piece of social legislation in over seven decades. It did so in the face of overwhelming and principled opposition from the American people. Large majorities of Americans oppose this legislation because it offends the historic American dedication to the principle of self-government. They understand that this new law will accelerate Washington’s intrusion into our most personal and private decisions.

This is why opposition to this bill will only grow. Supporters of this bill argue that popular hostility will recede upon its passage. But, rather than cementing our descent into a European-style welfare state, last night’s passage of Obamacare is best seen as a historic turning point, a true catalyst for real change.

I write to reassure our supporters, the conservative movement, and the American people at large that The Heritage Foundation will do all within its power to keep this issue alive in the public square and make the intellectual case for the repeal of this act. We will bring all our resources to bear on behalf of those who believe America is and will always remain the Land of the Free.

This, rest assured, can be done. The American people are never permanently thwarted. President Obama’s health care legislation can and will be repealed. (more…)

Tags: Intolerable Act, Public Opinion, repeal, Senate Health Bill, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington takeover

Obamacare’s Delusional Deficit Reduction Claims

Congressional leaders are gleefully reporting that the Congressional Budget Office score of their health care proposal released yesterday shows that their legislation would reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion in the first ten years. Not so fast—consummate professionals though they are, CBO provides a projection based on assumptions about the future conduct of Congress that do not always represent reality.

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, not exactly a supporter of the GOP, puts it this way: “…Democrats will be pointing to this preliminary CBO score as if it is engraved on stone tablets. Republicans will proclaim their respect for the CBO and proceed to argue that its estimates should not be taken too seriously in this instance. This may come as a surprise, but I think the Republican argument is closer to correct. To crow, as did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that the package is “a triumph for the American people in terms of deficit reduction” is premature at best, delusional at worst.” (more…)

Tags: Congressional Budget Office, deficits, doc fix, double-counted savings, excise tax, Public Opinion, reconciliation bill

Morning Bell: This Process is Undermining the Rule of Law

This week, NBC News and The Wall Street Journal released poll results that are disturbing but by no means surprising. The March 11th – 14th poll of 1000 American adults showed that only 17% of respondents approve of the job Congress is doing in Washington. And as bad as that number is, the reason why Congress’ approval rating is so low is even more disturbing: a full 76% of Americans simply do not trust the U.S. Congress. This was the lowest level of trust for any representative entity tested by NBC/WSJ.

It is no coincidence that these record low ratings come amid current debate over health care in Congress. Yesterday, former U.S. Attorneys General Edwin Meese III and William P. Barr released the following statement: (more…)

Tags: becomes law, Constitution, constitutional concerns, deem and pass, dodgy, former U.S. Attorneys General, Public Opinion, Senate Health Bill, unseemly