Democrats and the media like to imply that Hillary Clinton has a near-electoral vote lock on the White House. Maybe, but that was before several states that voted for President Obama in 2012 got hit with the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance premium increases.
Politico’s Dylan Byers wrote last May that on November 8, 2016, Hillary Clinton “will start—start—with a minimum of 247 of the 270 electoral votes she needs to win.”
Sounds daunting, but millions of Americans Byers assumes are in the Clinton column are struggling to pay Obamacare’s exploding premiums—or seeing their policies canceled. That includes the swing states and several others that lean blue, and those disgruntled voters could make the difference.
The website 270 To Win puts 217 squarely in the blue camp and 191 in the red. And it identifies 10 toss-up states—a few of which clearly lean blue—whose total electoral votes add up to 130: Nevada (6 votes), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), Florida (29), Ohio (18), Virginia (13), North Carolina (15), Wisconsin (10), Pennsylvania (20), and New Hampshire (4).
The Democratic candidate must win 53 of those votes, assuming she holds all the blue states, and the Republican must win 79 of them.
Now lets look at the Obamacare premium increases those 10 states are facing. The Department of Health and Human Services recently released its assessment of the average health premium increases for the second-lowest cost silver plan.
Of the 10 toss-up states, eight will see premiums increases: Nevada +8.1 percent, Colorado +12.8 percent, Florida +1.2 percent, Virginia +4 percent, New Hampshire +5.1 percent, Wisconsin +4.7 percent, Pennsylvania +10.9 percent, and North Carolina +22.8 percent (ouch!). Ohio saw a very small decline, -0.7 percent, and Colorado remained unchanged.
People seeing their premiums jump up significantly might think twice about rewarding the party that caused that economic pain. And that goes double for Pennsylvania and North Carolina, because they saw double-digit increases.
In addition, some of the blue-leaning states are looking at premium increases: New Mexico is getting a 25.8 percent hike (5 electoral votes) and Michigan 1.2 percent (16 votes).
Oh, and bell-weather Missouri (10 electoral votes) is looking at a 10.4 percent increase.
That’s 11 states with 134 electoral votes that will be paying much more for health insurance. If voters in those states are mad about their premium increases—and who isn’t?—that’s more than enough electoral votes to undermine the “Hillary is inevitable” narrative.
Democrats often try to brush aside the criticisms about the increases, claiming premiums were going up before Obamacare. But that was also before Obama lied to Americans and promised that health care costs would be lower. He and the Democrats own this issue—including the premium spikes.
And you can bet the GOP and its candidates will frequently remind voters in those states that they have Democrats—and Obamacare defender Hillary Clinton—to thank for those increases.
Read more at http://rare.us/story/huge-obamacare-premium-hike-could-cost-hillary-clinton-the-election/#T3ToATeAUVQhKjKx.99