The American people aren't stupid but they are ignorant about Obamacare, the eminent Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt recently wrote in a Health Affairs blog post.
Reinhardt was trying to sympathetically explain the notorious comment by fellow economist Jonathan Gruber that Democrats capitalized on “the stupidity of the American voter” to win passage of the healthcare reform law. He said many Americans are ignorant about the law because they work long hours and don't have time to study complex policy issues, plus they are bombarded with “judiciously biased information” put out by well-funded, ideologically driven groups.
President Obama also took a crack the other day at explaining why so many Americans, particularly white working-class people, are down on his healthcare law even as millions are benefiting from it. In an interview with NPR, he said that the Affordable Care Act is one of the best examples of how he and fellow Democrats have been “fighting” for those working-class voters' interests. But the perception fostered by Republicans and the news media, he argued, is that the ACA mostly helps minority and poor people.
“Well, the truth of the matter is that a state like Kentucky that doesn't have a massive black or Hispanic population has been one of the strongest states,” Obama said. “Mitch McConnell's state is one of the best states in using the Affordable Care Act to insure huge numbers of working-class white voters. It's just they don't call it Obamacare. They call it something else.”
Both Reinhardt and Obama would have a hard time explaining the views of Louisville resident Amanda Mayhew, a 38-year-old single mother of four who enrolled in Kentucky's expanded Medicaid program in August after being uninsured for most of her adult life. Since becoming enrolled, according to the New York Times, she's been to the dentist five times to save her neglected teeth and gums and received medication for her depression. “I am very, very thankful that Medicaid does cover what I need done right now,” said Mayhew, a white woman who works in a low-paying job at a breast-feeding supply store.
So what's the surprise? Mayhew believes what she heard on “news programs”—that the healthcare law prohibits lifesaving care for elderly people with cancer. There's no such provision in the law.
“I don't love Obamacare,” she said. “If we have Obamacare, and the insurance is available to me, I will use it and be thankful for it. But would I gladly give up my insurance today if it meant that some of the things that are in the law were not in place? Yes, I would.”
Reinhardt wrote his blog post before the Times article about Mayhew was published. But he comes close to saying what politicians dare not say about constituents like Mayhew. “I have empathy for politicians who feel obliged to profess horror when someone calls their constituents 'ignorant,' let alone 'stupid,' ” Reinhardt wrote. “Admitting it would not be a way to win votes. Professing abhorrence is.”
I'd like to hear Obama's honest reaction.
Follow Harris Meyer on Twitter: @MHHmeyer
