NOAH ROTHMAN: Dems’ Irrational Obamacare Exuberance.
Most of the surveys taken since the election that show the ACA is suddenly popular do not break down the responses along demographic and partisan lines, but the surveys sponsored by Fox News do. In August, their survey (conducted by the GOP firm Shaw & Company Research and the Democratic firm Anderson Robbins Research) found 54 percent of respondents disapproved of the ACA with only 41 percent viewing it favorably. Among the disapprovers, 24 percent of Democrats gave ObamaCare bad marks. Flash forward to mid-January and Fox’s poll found 50 percent of adults suddenly approve of the law with 46 percent dissenting, but Democrats drive much of that shift. That survey discovered that, suddenly, only 8 percent of Democrats offered pollsters negative reviews of the law. Republicans and self-described independents’ views remained virtually unchanged.
If Democrats began considering ObamaCare as a proxy for their support of the outgoing president as they stared down the barrel of a Trump administration, it is no coincidence that the ACA’s approval ratings began to correspond with those enjoyed by President Barack Obama in his final days. That also suggests that the boomlet of favorability ratings for the Democrats’ health-care overhaul is chimerical.
This and the Iran Deal are about all they have left of eight years of Barack Obama.