(FISCAL TIMES) Barack Obama declared victory this week as the deadline to avoid the penalty for the individual mandate to carry health insurance passed on Monday. “The Affordable Care Act is here to stay,” the President insisted as he announced that 7.1 million people had enrolled in private insurancethrough Obamacare. “The debate over repealing this law is over.”
Consider that presidential wish casting in a midterm cycle in which Democrats will have to constantly defend their support for the unpopular law. As Jimmy Fallon pointed out later the same evening, the numbers were neither impressive nor reliable. “It’s amazing what you can achieve when you make something mandatory,” Fallon told his laughing audience, “fine people if they don’t do it — and keep extending the deadline for months.”
The public has hardly been in a celebratory or a laughing mood. Polls show that the American public remains as opposed to the ACA as ever, with 55 percent of Quinnipiac respondents disapproving of the law. Only 39 percent approve of Obama’s handling of health care policy, which has until recently been a Democratic Party strength. For that matter, Obama only gets a 40 percent approval rating on the economy and jobs, to which House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants the debate to turn now that the Obamacare debate “is over.”