By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
As millions of Americans brace for health insurance bills that will soon double or worse, the coming crisis is not the result of confusion or accident. It is the consequence of a long campaign that treated health care not as a human necessity, but as a battleground for grievance, race, and political spite.
At the center of that reckoning is the Affordable Care Act, the same law that will soon become unaffordable for tens of millions if Congress fails to extend enhanced subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. Without those credits, premiums for marketplace plans are expected to rise by more than 100 percent on average, forcing millions to drop coverage entirely. In West Virginia alone, analysis shows premiums for some households increasing tenfold, with older residents and middle-income families hit hardest, a spike that advocates say will push many to forgo coverage altogether.
Yet the danger unfolding now cannot be understood without confronting a deeper truth. Opposition to the law has never been solely about cost, structure, or government reach. It has also been about race, resentment, and the name Barack Obama.
Polling from West Virginia lays that reality bare. When residents were asked their opinion of the Affordable Care Act, 70 percent approved and just 30 percent disapproved. When asked about Obamacare, support collapsed. Only 30 percent approved while 70 percent disapproved. The policy did not change. Only the name did.
That pattern is not an outlier. National research has repeatedly shown that many Americans respond differently to the law depending on whether it is associated with Obama himself. A widely cited survey found that more than one-third of Americans did not know the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare were the same law, and confusion was especially pronounced among lower-income Americans who stood to lose the most from repeal or erosion.
Academic research goes further. A major peer-reviewed study published in BMC Health Services Research found that states with higher levels of racial resentment were significantly less likely to fully implement ACA marketplaces and showed lower enrollment rates, even after controlling for ideology, income, and health status. The study concluded that hostility toward the law was often rooted in perceptions that it primarily benefited Black Americans and other groups deemed undeserving of public support.
That hostility was not subtle. From the moment President Obama signed the law, Republicans voted more than 50 times to repeal it. Donald Trump made dismantling Obamacare a centerpiece of his political identity, branding the law as a symbol of what he called government excess while offering no comprehensive replacement. Even now, as subsidies lapse and families face ruinous costs, Trump and GOP leaders have offered rhetoric instead of relief.
Both Democratic and Republican bills to extend the subsidies failed in the Senate this month, falling short of the votes needed to advance. The result leaves more than 24 million Americans insured through the ACA marketplace exposed to dramatic cost increases beginning January 1.
Public opinion stands in stark contrast to congressional inaction. A recent Gallup survey found that approval of the Affordable Care Act has reached a new high of 57 percent, driven largely by independents, even as Republicans remain overwhelmingly opposed. Separate polling shows that roughly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government should ensure health care coverage for all, including majorities of independents and lower-income Republicans.
Still, the name Obama remains radioactive in certain quarters. Research has shown that simply attaching Obama’s name to a policy can activate racialized opposition that would not otherwise exist.
This is the quiet cruelty of the moment. The same people who approve of the Affordable Care Act recoil at Obamacare. The same voters who say government should ensure health care for all tolerate a political strategy that withholds it. The same lawmakers who warn of rising costs allow those costs to explode rather than extend a program they fear defending.