Chuck Schumer claims Obamacare will not be the biggest issue in the 2014 election
Call this wishful thinking; Chuck Schumer made the claim that Obamacare will not be the biggest issue in the 2014 election.
“The president is working to fix it,” Schumer told NBC’s “Meet the Press” with David Gregory on Sunday. “The bottom line is, there are a lot of good things in Obamacare that people like, and the more people see that, the more positive it’s going to be.
“And I would just say one other thing, with all the focus on Obamacare, David. The number one issue in the 2014 election is not going to be Obamacare or the deficit.
What does Chuck Schumer think is going to be the biggest issue in the election?
It is going to be who can get the middle class going again, who can expand middle class incomes, who can create jobs. That is far and away the issue that most Americans care about.”
I do have to agree with him on this; the plight of the Middle Class is going to be a major factor in the 2014 election, but what he is ignoring in this scenario is the disastrous effect that Obamacare is having on the Middle Class. Even the New York Times, which could never be confused as being friendly to conservatives, had to admit that Obamacare is decimating the Middle Class:
Ginger Chapman and her husband, Doug, are sitting on the health care cliff.
The cheapest insurance plan they can find through the new federal marketplace in New Hampshire will cost their family of four about $1,000 a month, 12 percent of their annual income of around $100,000 and more than they have ever paid before.
Even more striking, for the Chapmans, is this fact: If they made just a few thousand dollars less a year — below $94,200 — their costs would be cut in half, because a family like theirs could qualify for federal subsidies.
The Chapmans acknowledge that they are better off than many people, but they represent a little-understood reality of the Affordable Care Act. While the act clearly benefits those at the low end of the income scale — and rich people can continue to afford even the most generous plans — people like the Chapmans are caught in the uncomfortable middle: not poor enough for help, but not rich enough to be indifferent to cost.
“We are just right over that line,” said Ms. Chapman, who is 54 and does administrative work for a small wealth management firm. Because their plan is being canceled, she is looking for new coverage for her family, which includes Mr. Chapman, 55, a retired fireman who works on a friend’s farm, and her two sons. “That’s an insane amount of money,” she said of their new premium. “How are you supposed to pay that?”
An analysis by The New York Times shows the cost of premiums for people who just miss qualifying for subsidies varies widely across the country and rises rapidly for people in their 50s and 60s. In some places, prices can quickly approach 20 percent of a person’s income.
Experts consider health insurance unaffordable once it exceeds 10 percent of annual income. By that measure, a 50-year-old making $50,000 a year, or just above the qualifying limit for assistance, would find the cheapest available plan to be unaffordable in more than 170 counties around the country, ranging from Anchorage to Jackson, Miss.
And therein lies the biggest problem with Obamacare: The rich, which the left so despises, are able to absorb the higher price of healthcare coverage while the poor are getting subsidies to offset the higher premiums. Yet it is the Middle Class, which the left claims to care so much about, that is being hit the hardest by this ill-written law because they cannot afford the higher premiums and do not qualify for the subsidies.
The Middle Class is left with two options; either pay more towards healthcare coverage, which will leave less expendable money to put back into the economy and leave them with less money for other necessities, or make less money in order to qualify for the subsidies. While the latter option may make healthcare more affordable for the Middle Class, making less money will still mean they have less expendable money to spend on necessities.
Neither of these scenarios help to grow the Middle Class, and in fact just add to the struggles of Middle Class families. And neither scenario is advantageous to growing the economy by lifting the Middle Class , in fact it is just the opposite.
People like Chuck Schumer can do their best to separate the issue of Obamacare from the plight of the Middle Class, but try as they might there is no denying the fact that these two issues are linked and therefore will represent a major problem for the Democrats in the 2014 election, whether the Democrats want to admit it or not.
The only question is, will the Middle Class make this connection? I think they will.
America's Watchtower 
My guess is the cost of Obamacare will even worse in 2015 when the isurance companies have to make up for the young adults that didn’t sign on. Unless the GOP completely blows their opportunity, Obamacare will be a major issue in the 2014 elections. Let’s hope that Boehner doesn’t offer to help fix it.
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It is going to get much worse when the employer mandate kicks in. I am with you; at this point the Republicans should not try to help Obama out of this. Lee and Cruz tried to prevent this and Obama would have none of it, now let him stew in the misery he created. It will be better for America in the long run.
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Chuckle cheese Schumer is right. Lest we forget that even with a true unemployment rate of 15-20% the middle class meatheads had no problem re-electing the anti jobs candidate to a second term. The gang that couldn’t shoot straight, the RINO led republicans, will pay for their moral cowardice once again. Guys like Schumer will not have to separate the democrats fromObamacare as the electorate is well on its way to doing that all on its own. Hopefully I and so many others with whom I speak with and also agree on this are wrong.
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You are probably right, somehow the Democrats will distance themselves from this and the Republicans will not be able to pin this on them.
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Reblogged this on Brittius.com.
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Thank you.
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You’re welcome.
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With Obama’s constant “slight of hand” I am sure it will be a whole new game. We are always trying to react to what has happened, they change what will happen.
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That is all too true, one way or the other Obama and the Dems will manage to put the Republicans on the defensive.
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There are over 2,700 UnCare pages and climbing. Sebelius on Obamacare Regulations: “I Don’t Know How Many Pages.” AND she probably doesn’t know what those regulations are – nor care. “What happened to the Eight Amendment?” Justice Antonin Scalia erupted … {Article 1 Section 8 http://www.constitution.org/constit_.htm} What about: “Limits the powers of the federal government to those delegated to it by the Constitution.” Bill of Rights.
With “The real unemployment rate for ‘December 2012’ is closer to 23 percent,” and that was a year ago – today it’s worse! Where are the jobs going? Biz’s cutting back because of UnCare – decease in hours & pay. Raising the minimum wage would hurt small biz owners more.
“The rich, which the left so despises, …” only if they’re ‘not in’ that ‘elite group’! It’s the rich manufacturing the collapse and those in the gov. ‘making it so’. The lie-enablers support the very ones they think they’re fighting against! Hoping for the best is nice, but there has to be those worthy of that hope – manifesting it in real time. There are ’48’ more Repub.s in Congress right now ~ ‘where’s the beef?’ Just seems ‘fishie’ : /
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They are making this all up as they go along, the original law means nothing, just had to get it passed so they could create the real law afterwards and the Republicans are not stopping them because they want to run against Obamacare and have no real interest in repealing it. They think they have a better chance of winning if Obamacare is in place and care more about that than they do about doing anything about it.
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The problem with the focus being on the Middle-Class and job-creation – Obama said this would happen when he campaigned on it more than four years ago…here we are, and still nothing…failed Green Energy and more failed Green Energy – the very thing he was hanging his hat on.
There are many things about Obamacare that people liked? Yeah, and I’m certain there were many German civilians who thought Hitler’s plans had “many things they liked” also. Until Septic Shock sunk in and changed all that.
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Yes, people didn’t care until they realized it was going to hurt them personally, now they care but it may be too late!
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My friend, I believe it is already too late.
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So do I!
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Even if C/S were correct, and I disagree (immediately thought same as you – “wishful thinking”), when people begin to die because they must wait too long for treatment, or it’s denied …. I think this’ll implode on all of us! (Referring to the cost-mismanagement.
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It is going to implode, I cannot see how it can hold up, but in the meantime people will die and I don’t think they are because with less people it will bring the cost down. That is the only way to bring the cost down…..
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