Here are a couple of other interesting tidbits from the Kaiser tracking poll that I wrote about earlier this morning. First off, just about everyone—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents—thinks that Obamacare premiums have gone up this year:
In fact, average premiums have gone down, an indication that the marketplace has started to stabilize. It would be worthwhile for Democrats to crow about this, don’t you think?
But even with misconceptions about premiums widespread, favorable approval ratings for Obamacare have finally opened up a steady and seemingly permanent gap:
Favorable opinions have stayed about 10 points above unfavorable for more than a year now. This took longer than I expected, but it looks like Obamacare is slowly but surely becoming an accepted part of the American social welfare landscape, just like Medicare and Social Security.