President Obama (Creative Commons)

Obamacare started out as a term used by Republican bloggers and commentators to slander Barack Obama’s vision for health care reform. The term started gaining traction during the 2007-08 Republican primary. Mitt Romney said during a 2007 campaign speech, “The path of Europe is not the way to go. Socialized medicine. Hillarycare. Obamacare.”

Opponents pounded the health reform initiative for over two years, calling it a government take-over of health care, socialism and many other big government inuendos all under the the label Obamcare. These labels have stuck, and the mandate in the Act requiring everyone to carry insurance has given teeth to these labels. The term makes it sound like we have few health clinics across America with people lined up on the streets to recieve free health care. 

Sorry folks, health care still isn't free. It still costs an arm and a leg. 

Obamacare, on the surface, really does sound like a socialist program. That’s why Democrats made a huge mistake in not challenging its use earlier on. The fact that Democrats are now embracing the term blows my mind. Even President Obama himself is now asking people to tweet about why they like Obamacare. 

He is trying to turn Obamacare from a slander to a term of endearment, but I don’t think it’s going to work. The reason it was used as a slander is because it sounds like a scary big brother government program.

The Affordable Care Act is a much more benign and appealing title—Democrats should have defended it rather then retreat and succumb to the mind-numbing term “Obamacare.” Is Obama going to come to my house and give me Advil when I have a fever?          

It’s such a simple-minded term and it kills me that political discourse has gotten so dumbed down in the past few years.