Why Obamacare is a losing issue for Romney

Mitt Romney doubled down on his plan to "repeal" Obamacare recently, but this could help sink his campaign.

As each day goes by, more people benefit from features of Obamacare and many are aware of why they are receiving these benefits.  At the same time, individuals learn each day that they will come to depend on Obamacare for their retirement especially if they plan on retiring or are forced to retire before they are eligible for Medicare.

Each of these individuals may find Mitt Romney's plan to axe Obamacare as harmful to their future and it could have an influence on their vote.  The impact could be especially strong among undecided voters.  On the other hand, the number of people who would vote against President Obama because of Obamacare has no stimulus to grow.

As people learn about Obamacare, they find that most of the information that they thought was true is actually inaccurate.  A report just released today by Kaiser, for example, indicates that if Romney were to repeal Obamacare, Medicare would go bankrupt by 2016.

Therefore, the more Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan attack Obamacare, the more they risk losing voters who are becoming dependent on that coverage or who are learning that they already benefit from its provisions.

Obama's campaign team, for its part, can counter attacks on Obamacare by helping people to understand how the Affordable Care Act is helping them or will help them in the future.  Obamacare forms part of a different vision of the future shared by the president and Democrats that focuses on people helping people with a role for government.  In this vision, the government, funded by the people, is not the enemy.

The vision of Mitt Romney and the Republicans, in its most extreme view, almost demonizes government. They do seem to see a role for government in assisting big business, for example, subsidies for big oil and gas.  Yet, they have a problem with safety nets for ordinary people. Their vision is one in which government and the elite move on a different track than that of the middle class and the poor.

Public option lives on

I've been reading for several months now how the public option was toast, roadkill, dead in the water, etc. Yet, in reality, the public option hasn't really gone anywhere.

Health care reform really will not mean anything without a public option or something rather identical. You need something that gives the uninsured an affordable or free option and also offers something for people who are underinsured.

There are two of the big health care problems. The uninsured drive up rates by using emergency rooms for their health needs. These emergency room costs are passed on to all consumers. Underinsured folk are now the leading statistic among people declaring bankruptcy. Their medical costs are driving them into insolvency. The number of underinsured people has been rising at an alarming rate. As they go down financially, they help drag the general economy down with them.

A public option could also help bring down overall medical costs just by providing more competition. Currently, health care costs are threatening to shut down retirement plans including the largest plan of them all -- Social Security and Medicare.

Without a public option, we're not likely to see any major change in the economic situation soon. There's too much tied into the health care system. There's at least as much tied into the health care system as was linked to the real estate market, and we saw what happened when that sector collapsed.

Democrats invoke Kennedy in health care push

The late Sen. Ted Kennedy was as strong a supporter of universal health care as there was in Congress. In a letter to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Kennedy implicitly made known his dying wish was to pass health reform. He asked the governor to appoint someone temporarily in his place to take part in the voting for Obama's health bill.

Democratic groups, politicians and activists have been using rallies, email, social networking sites and everything else available to get this message across -- to honor Kennedy by passing health reform.

Kennedy's niece, Maria Shriver says her uncle's death may provide the impetus needed to push health reform through Congress. Expect Kennedy's name to be invoked quite often when Congress resumes session in September.