Readers with long memories might recall my rant in 2010 about voter ignorance. (“The new Know Nothings,” Nov. 18, 2010.) Apparently the public has not taken my criticism to heart.
After years during which Republican Party candidates and Fox News repeatedly, even obsessively talked about little else, after the more recent (and well-reported) wrangles in state legislatures about whether and how to implement it, a new poll from the respected Kaiser Family Foundation found that fewer than six in 10 Americans know that “Obamacare” (the Affordable Care Act) is still on the books. Worse, only one in every five people likely to gain access to health insurance as a result of the ACA (either through federally subsidized private policies or expanded state Medicaid coverage) knew that such programs will become available to them in 2014.
I have nothing to say about this, except to note that the many polls purporting to measure public views on Obamacare, and about which pols and newsies obsess, measure only what people think they know, which is next to nothing.
