Democrats won't say 'ObamaCare' on the campaign trail


Health care is a key issue this election season, but what you hear about it may depend on which party you support. While Republican candidates are quick to pinpoint ObamaCare as the source of many of America's health-care woes, Democrats are avoiding the term. They're opting to use its official name, "Affordable Care Act," or the acronym ACA instead.
The move makes sense, given that a 2013 poll showed Americans are a little more likely to support the law if Obama's name isn't associated with it — and Obama's own approval numbers are even lower now than they were then. However, the president himself has expressed support for using the ObamaCare name, saying in 2011 that he has "no problem with folks saying, 'Obama cares.' I do care."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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