Jon Cohn defends the term “Obamacare”:
I get what the polls are saying. This is still not a particularly popular piece of legislation. People may not want to repeal it, but they’re not about to celebrate it, either. I imagine the White House and the Democrats have strategists who have run surveys on this and concluded the term is not particularly helpful.
Even so, I like the term. I think this bill will be popular someday and, in the meantime, I think it’s a reminder that this administration did something that will help millions of Americans while starting to put our health care system in order. Maybe I’m wrong — I’ve certainly been wrong about this before — but I think that within a few years, and maybe even by 2012, association with the health care plan will be a net plus.
I’d say that 2012 is pretty optimistic, but I certainly agree that eventually Obamacare will be a popular program. My question is whether this is ever likely to catch on. Social Security isn’t RooseveltSecurity and Medicare isn’t JohnsonCare. Presidents really don’t get their names associated like this very often except with broad world views like Bush Doctrine, Reaganomics, etc. And even that’s not very common.
The real problem here is that Democrats, once again, failed Legislation 101. This was their bill. They could name it anything they wanted. So what did they choose? PPACA. That’s very memorable, isn’t it? What’s wrong with these guys?
