President Barack Obama will take a cautious step down a slippery slope Thursday morning by offering putative fixes to his crippled Obamacare network, which has already kicked millions of influential middle-class Americans off their health insurance plans.
The high-risk move is being forced on him by Democratic senators and representatives who are increasingly worried that non-political swing voters will revolt against the federal takeover of the health sector and chuck them out of office in November 2014.
If six Senate seats flip to the GOP, Obama’s last two years as president will be neutered.
But if Obama promises to change his Obamacare network, millions of young and healthy people likely will slow their sign-up until they see if the changes benefit them.
But their dollars are needed to offset the high cost of providing health care to older and sick people, and to fund the subsidies offered to poor people, including millions of Democratic-leaning low-skill Hispanics.
And if Obama’s cautious fixes don’t solve the Democrats’ problem, he’ll face more pressure to make bigger fixes. Then the young and healthy American will get an even stronger incentive to delay signing until they can see whether the next wave of fixes are a good deal for them.