GOP hatred of ACA may stem from delusions
This week’s open enrollment for Obamacare once again made me wonder: How can conservatives be so convinced of the healthcare law’s failure when the opposite is demonstrably clear? Obamacare is far from perfect, but it’s in no way a “disaster,” a “catastrophe” or “imploding.”
In 2010, the year the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, nearly 50 million people in this country were uninsured. As of 2016, that number had dropped to about 29 million, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
People with preexisting conditions could no longer be charged more or denied coverage by insurers. Young people could remain on their parents’ plans up to age 26.
Yet Republican politicians and voters remain determined to do away with Obamacare, regardless of the shortcomings of their proposed replacements.
A paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, published by Oxford University Press, sheds light on their thinking by observing that conservative consumers are prone to “right- wing authoritarianism” and “system justification motivation.”
Those are fancy ways of saying conservatives are more willing than liberals to accept what their leaders say as true and have little appetite for rocking the boat.
Kiju Jung, a lecturer at the University of Sydney Business School and coauthor of the paper, told me conservatives are basically more inclined “to believe in society’s institutions, and thus to avoid challenging these systems.”
“This underlying difference helps to explain why conservatives resist new consumer offerings that represent dramatic change — for example, Obamacare,” he said.
The paper is titled “Blue and Red Voices: Effects of Political Ideology on Consumers’ Complaining and Disputing Behavior.”
Three of the four coauthors are based at the University of Sydney Business School and one is from the
U. S. stocks f inished mixed Thursday as investors pored over House Republicans’ tax proposals and after President Trump nominated Jerome H. Powell to lead the Federal Reserve. Weak earnings results from consumer and healthcare companies pulled those parts of the market down.
The House tax plan would temporarily cut the top corporate tax rate. That helped the stocks of smaller, more U. S.- focused companies, because they generally pay higher tax rates than larger f irms that do a lot of business in other countries.
The GOP tax plan was mostly what investors expected, said Mona Mahajan, U. S. investment strategist for Allianz Global Investors. She noted that the bill would immediately lower the corporate tax rate instead of reducing it over time, an idea some Republicans had proposed.
“That alone is a win for corporations becoming more competitive with global peers, especially the small- cap and domestic companies,” she said.
Home improvement retailers and home builders slumped because the tax bill would reduce the amount of interest Americans can deduct on new mortgages. Luxury home builder Toll Bros. slid 6.1% to $ 43.79. Retailer Home Depot fell 1.6% to $ 162.71.
Several companies plunged after they cut their annual forecasts.
Newell Brands, which makes Sharpie and Rubbermaid products, dived 26.8% to a three- year low of $ 30.01.
Teva Pharmaceutical, which makes generic drugs, dropped 19.9% to $ 11.23.
Underwear and sock maker Hanesbrands declined 8.8% to $ 20.08.
Symantec dropped 8.6% to $ 29.38 after the security software maker said it expects less revenue and fewer bookings than analysts hoped.
L Brands, on the other hand, jumped 8% to $ 47.10 after the parent of Victoria’s Secret gave an optimistic forecast.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10- year Treasury note declined to 2.35% from 2.37%. The yield on the two- year note fell to 1.60% from 1.62%.
U. S. crude oil rose 24 cents to $ 54.54 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the standard for international oil prices, rose 13 cents to $ 60.62 a barrel in London. Wholesale gasoline rose 3 cents to $ 1.77 a gallon. Heating oil fell 1 cent to $ 1.85 a gallon. Natural gas rose 4 cents to $ 2.94 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Gold rose 80 cents to $ 1,278.10 an ounce. Silver fell 4 cents to $ 17.14 an ounce. Copper stayed at $ 3.14 a pound.
The dollar slipped to 114 yen from 114.22 yen. The euro rose to $ 1.1659 from $ 1.1620.
The Bank of England raised interest rates for the f irst time in a decade. The pound fell as investors predicted rates wouldn’t go up again soon, and the British FTSE 100 index rose.