A Plurality of Kentuckians Like Obamacare, As Long as It’s Called Something Else

Last updated on June 6th, 2014 at 12:49 am

A new NBC-Marist poll found that 57% of registered voters in Kentucky have an unfavorable view of Obamacare, while 33% have a favorable view of it.

But a plurality of registered voters – 29% – have a favorable impression of Kynect. Kynect is Obamacare, by a different name. Twenty-two percent have an unfavorable impression of it, and 27% have never heard of it while 21% are unsure.

And just to prove that it’s all in the name, not in what it actually does, a plurality 43% of registered voters strongly think the “health care law” is a really bad idea. Just 27% think it’s a good idea. But they love Kynect.

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I’ll bet if the questions were worded differently in order to explain what it does, the results would be different. For example, “Do you think it is a good idea to have affordable healthcare available for everyone so that everyone pays their share and no one is cut off from medical help due to an inability to pay?” “Do you think it’s a good idea to stop insurance companies from canceling insurance policies when a person gets sick?” “Do you think it’s a good idea to give women free mammograms?” Etc.

The truth is that Americans love what Republicans call socialism, so long as it’s not called socialism. Waving hello to the Tea Partiers against socialism who carry signs telling the government to keep their hands off of their Medicare.

A negative 1% “haven’t heard of it (Obamacare)”. That’s pretty astounding for a policy, but who could miss it with Republicans fear mongering about it, tossing coffins on lawns, sending threats to lawmakers, and Sarah Palin’s Death Panels. You’d have to be living in a cave to have missed the idea that Obamacare was going to kill you and fundamentally change America to a socialist Fascist state of doom forever, as not shown in every other industrialized nation which have affordable health insurance.

The key here is that Obamacare is in operation now and people are beginning to see that the world has not ended. In time, what Republicans fear the most will happen: People will embrace Obamacare as they do Medicare and Social Security, thus harming Republicans’ efforts to keep Americans from having a government that works for them instead of the elite. Every time a voter sees the government working to help citizens, a Republican has to spend more money to fool the voters come election season.

Democratic Governor Steve Beshear, of Embrace Obamacare and Attack Kentucky Republicans with It fame, has a 63% approval rating and a 22% disapproval, with 14% unsure. In other words, we might question conventional “wisdom” (aka, beltway agreement) that claims Democrats are fighting an uphill battle in 2014 because of Obama’s bad approval ratings and Obamacare. The truth is that Democrats are fighting an uphill battle because the press aids and abets Republicans in their Obama/Obamacare fear-mongering, fail at fact-checking, and run bogus Benghazi email and bogus IRS stories based on uncorroborated Republican sources. If the press did their job, the people would not be so misinformed as to only like Obamacare when it’s called something else.

Sure, Obama’s approval ratings are nowhere near as low as W’s, but the press totally buys it when Americans tend to not approve of Obama after all they hear of the President – from same press – is that he is lying about a cover up in Benghazi and using the IRS to hunt down enemies.

The same caveat can be applied to Americans supposed dislike of Obamacare. All they’ve heard of it is scary Republican ads about Obama’s death panels and Obama stealing from Medicare. The loudest voices have the most money to spread their “message”. The Koch brothers are spending millions on ObamaScare ads. These things tend to make an impression on the public, especially when they aren’t paying enough attention to know who is behind the claims.

Those polled in the NBC poll were majority white, mostly landlines (some cell phone users), with a majority “registered Democrat”. The caveat here is that with the Tea Party splitting from the GOP and embarrassed/disenchanted conservatives pretending to be “Independents”, it’s hard to know if the Independents in polls really represent Independents, or are comprised of enough embarrassed Republicans to actually belong in the Republican column.