Senate Democrats Face Fallout of Millions of Insurance Cancellations Next Year
by Mark Ashworth
WASHINGTON, D.C. – With 80 million people forecasted to lose their employer-based health insurance, members of Congress who supported the inaptly named Affordable Care Act (ACA), are in big trouble. Recent polls show Senate Democrats, all of whom voted for Obamacare, running behind their prospective rivals.
Only last month, Republicans, blamed for the government shutdown and ongoing budget woes on Capitol Hill, suffered a polling deficit of 10 points. That deficit has vanished in the wake of ObamaCare’s near universal unpopularity. A new CNN/ORC poll indicates the GOP now holds a 49%-47% edge.
The disastrous launch of ObamaCare is causing prominent Senate Democrats to watch in fear as their approval ratings drop precipitously. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana is now polling at 41% against her GOP opposition, and Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor’s approval rating has sunk to an abysmal 33%. In Colorado, Senator Mark Udall has seen a lead of 15 points dissipate in less than a month. And, a North Carolina poll showed that by a margin of 20, voters prefer giving a chance to someone new to replace Senator Kay Hagan.
Obamacare is killing Senate Democrats running for re-election in 2014. The prognosis for a speedy recovery is grave.
On November 6th, 16 Senate Democrats, dumbstruck and panicky over the failed rollout of Obamacare, met with the president at the White House. In that meeting, strategically left off of Mr. Obama’s public schedule, they voiced universal frustration. A coalition that includes, Senators Mark Pryor, D-Ark., Mary Landrieu, D-La., Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and Kay Hagan, D-N.C., signed a letter urging the White House to delay the ACA’s individual mandate.
Leery of White House promises that the Obamacare (Healthcare.gov) website will be “fixed” by November 30, and inundated with constituent complaints about being dropped by their health insurance providers, the number of Senate Democrats sponsoring new legislation is growing. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia supports a one-year delay in the individual mandate, and a Landrieu proposal will attempt to keep “grandfathered” plans intact – a desperate move to end the exponentially growing number of cancellation notices.
This past week saw seven Democratic Senators urging the administration to appoint a Chief Executive Officer to supervise the repair of the Healthcare.gov website. Led by New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen, Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; Mark Warner, D-Va., Christopher A. Coons, D-Del., Mary Landrieu, D-La., Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., signed a letter to the president, saying, “The law’s success is inextricably tied to the confidence of the American people.”
While that may be what they are saying, it appears that what they are thinking is that their poll numbers are inextricably tied to voters’ confidence in ObamaCare, thereby posing a huge threat to their re-election.
The White House has rejected any measures to change the law, standing by the notion that the website will soon be fixed, and hoping for a groundswell of support when those who do not have health insurance are able to sign-up.
Even if that happens, and it’s increasingly apparent that it will not, the astounding number of cancellation notices are the impetus of a much larger groundswell. Millions who believed the president and their Democratic Senator when they said, “if you like your healthcare, you can keep it,” think they were misled, or worse, lied to.
If the website isn’t fixed soon, if the cancellation letters don’t stop going out, if premiums don’t stop hemorrhaging , if enrollment stays anemic, and if the president doesn’t recover from his damaged trustworthiness, Senate Democrats running in 2014 may be radioactive from the fallout of the rollout.
Mark Ashworth (@marklarflash) is a Former Campaign and White House Staff Aide to President Ronald Reagan
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