repeal

The latest polling by Rasmussen Reports shows that independents think Obamacare would raise (53 percent), rather than lower (16 percent), health costs.  They think it would reduce (50 percent), rather than improve (13 percent), the quality of health care.  They think it would raise (56 percent), rather than lower (13 percent), the deficit.  And they think it would be bad (50 percent), rather than good (29 percent), for the country.  Not surprisingly, by a 13-point margin (51 to 38 percent), they think Obamacare should be repealed.

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows that — by a 15-point margin — the Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling makes voters less likely, rather than more likely, to cast their vote for President Obama. Twenty-seven percent of registered voters say that the ruling makes them “less likely” to vote for Obama, while only 12 percent say that it makes them “more likely” to do so. Only 9 percent of independents say that they are “more likely” to vote for Obama because of the ruling, compared to 27 percent who are “less likely.”

Regardless of whether the Obama administration and campaign insist on calling Obamacare a penalty, most Americans now believe the president's signature legislation is a tax, according to a new poll by Quinnipiac. Sixty percent of Hispanics believe Obamacare is a tax, and 59 percent of independent voters believe the same thing.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that Republicans will be able to "effectively repeal" Obamacare with a simple-majority vote in the Senate if they control Congress and the White House in 2013. By using the budget reconciliation process, repeal of Obamacare would not have to get the standard 60 votes needed to break a filibuster in the Senate. 

Now that Americans are becoming more acutely aware that Obamacare would be funded in large part through higher taxes, it’s all the more crucial for President Obama to keep voters from discovering the overhaul’s other principal source of funding — its Medicare raid.

The Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee will later today release the following chart, detailing the rising projected cost of President Obama's signature legislation, Obamacare:

Former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell writes in a long piece at Breitbart.com that the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold (most of) Obamacare, but only on the grounds that its lynchpin provision is a tax, “has changed the nature of the 2012 elections.”  Caddell argues that Obamacare was “the decisive issue” in the 2010 elections and, with President Obama on the ballot this time around, “is an even bigger issue” in 2012.

The New York Times reports that "a veteran Republican campaign consultant," speaking on the condition of anonymity and in an apparent time warp, said, "Anytime Republicans are debating taxes and the economy, we’re winning. Anytime we’re debating health care, they’re winning." In 2008, this might well have been true. But in 2012, well over two years into the era of Obamacare, it's an amazing and head-scratching statement.

One hundred times since President Obama signed Obamacare into law in March 2010, Rasmussen Reports has asked likely voters whether they want to repeal Obama’s centerpiece legislation or keep it. In all 100 polls, voters have favored repeal.

A newly released Rasmussen poll asked likely voters, “If Mitt Romney is elected President and Republicans win control of Congress, how likely is it that the health care law will be repealed?”  Only 40 percent of independents said that it’s “very likely.”  The other 60 percent of independents’ responses were divided among “somewhat likely” (33 percent), “not very likely” (15 percent), “not at all likely” (6 percent), and “not sure” (5 percent).

Apparently thinking that, in our republic, the president unilaterally passes laws and the Supreme Court unilaterally decides whether or not we’ll keep them, President Obama has been telling the American people that “the law I passed [Obamacare] is here to stay.”  But former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle — Obama's first choice as secretary of Health and Human Services — says that for Obamacare “to survive,” Obama “must be reelected.”

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is expected to hold another vote to repeal Obamacare, and the American Action Network is encouraging voters to tell House Democrats in potential swing districts to support repeal.