For the first time since 2007, non-economic issues are dominating the top two spots in the Gallup poll’s rankings of America’s most important problems. Dissatisfaction with the government in general remains at No. 1 this month, while Americans’ concerns over high health care costs and poor health care jumped from No. 4 last month to No. 2 this month. It comes as no surprise since the Affordable Care Act has been plagued from the start by convolution, lack of transparency, poor planning and lack of accountability on the president’s part — until this past week.
According to The Washington Post, “We fumbled the rollout on this health care law,” he admitted at Thursday afternoon’s news conference. “I am very frustrated, but I’m also somebody who, if I fumbled the ball, you know, I’m going to wait until I get the next play, and then I’m going to try to run as hard as I can and do right by the team.”
The feel-good football metaphor is wearing thin, however. Gallup results show President Barack Obama’s approval rating has been falling steadily this year, and his disapproval rating is now at a whopping 53 percent — matching his personal low.
Perhaps the most unsettling news to surface from the Healthcare.gov debacle is that the people the Affordable Care Act was supposed to help are ignoring the health care exchange website.
Gallup reported last week that only 18 percent of uninsured American adults have even attempted to visit a health care exchange website.
According to Gallup, “The health exchange websites are not only fraught with the technical problems that have led to so much news coverage in recent weeks, but have also generated relatively little interest or use among uninsured Americans — the primary target group for the exchanges. The majority of uninsured Americans are unfamiliar with the exchanges and relatively few have tried to access them to date, even among those who say that eventually, they will most likely get their insurance through an exchange website.”
The results aren’t altogether surprising: What incentive do uninsured adults have to sign up on Healthcare.gov, a broken system with unclear guidelines and misleading promises?
It’s difficult to tell from here if Obama can smooth out the kinks of the health care legislation, but the damage may already be done. Americans’, even faithful Democrats’, trust cache in Obama is near empty, and simply “waiting until the next play” won’t cut it anymore.
Although his campaign was built on optimism — his oft-quoted promises of hope and change — optimism can only take a president so far.
Americans aren’t football spectators, and they don’t want to wait until the next play and hope for a recovery.
Americans want an efficient and transparent government, affordable universal health care, immigration reform, jobs and stable foreign relations.
A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 11/18/2013 under the headline "Game Over: Obamacare woes aren’t just a fumble"
