Republicans Help Less Over Obamacare

Greg Sargent makes this catch on CNN's latest Obamacare poll:

With the political world still pondering what yesterday’s court rulings mean for the future of Obamacare, CNN has published a fascinating new poll that asks a question I haven’t seen before. It asks whether the law has personally helped respondents, but then follows up and asks whether respondents think the law has helped others. 

And guess what: A huge majority of Republicans and conservatives don’t think the law has helped anybody in this country. 

Among all Americans, the poll finds that 18 percent say the law has made them and their families better off. But another 35 percent say the law has made other families better off, for a total of 54 percent who say they or others are being helped. Meanwhile, 44 percent say the law hasn’t helped anybody — a lot, but still a minority. 

Crucially, an astonishing 72 percent of Republicans, and 64 percent of conservatives, say the law hasn’t helped anyone. (Only one percent of Republicans say the law has helped them!) By contrast, 57 percent of moderates say the law has helped them or others. Independents are evenly divided.

This makes complete sense in terms of the pathology of the Republican mind:  if Obamacare has helped Americans in any way, then repealing it would hurt Americans.  Since roughly 3 out of 4 Republicans believe that nobody has been helped by Obamacare, repealing it will only help everyone.  What Republicans really mean when they say that "nobody" has been helped by Obamacare is that no Republicans have been helped by Obamacare.

It's screaming denial that ignores millions, if not tens of millions of Americans seeing a change for the better in affordable health care, but all of those people are probably Democrats anyway, so why not hurt them?  As far as they're concerned, Obamacare is taking fro hard-working, patriotic Republicans to give to awful, parasitic Democrats.  Of course nobody that counts is being helped by it.

So yes, only one percent of Republicans say Obamacare has personally helped them.  That's ludicrous, but then again, we're talking about completely ridiculous Republican voters.  It helps Democrats, and especially those people, so the law has to go.