Explaining the rage against Obamacare is not complex

I guess it ain’t over until the portly golfer sings, but it does look as if Obamacare will survive. In the end, Mitch McConnell couldn’t find the votes he needed; many thanks are due to U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain, not to mention the solid wall of Democrats standing up for what’s right. Meanwhile, all indications are that the insurance markets are stabilizing, with insurer profitability up and only around 0.1 percent of enrollees unserved.

It’s true that the tweeter-in-chief retains considerable ability to sabotage care, but Republicans are basically begging him to stop, believing — correctly — that the public will blame them for any future deterioration in coverage.

Why did Obamacare survive? It’s still here because it does so much good. Tens of millions have health coverage — imperfect, but far better than none — thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Millions more rest easier knowing that coverage will still be available if they lose their employer-sponsored plan or develop a chronic condition.

Which raises a big question: Why did the prospect of health reform produce so much popular rage in 2009 and 2010?

I’m not talking about the rage of GOP apparatchiks, who hated and feared the ACA because they were afraid it would work. (It has.) Nor am I talking about the rage of some wealthy people furious that their taxes were going up to pay for lesser mortals’ care.

No, I’m talking about the people who screamed at their congressional representatives in town halls. People like, for example, the man who pushed his wheelchair-bound son, who was suffering from cerebral palsy, in front of a congressman, yelling that President Obama’s health care plan would provide the boy with “no care whatsoever” and would be a “death sentence.”

The reality, of course, is that people with pre-existing medical conditions are among the ACA’s biggest beneficiaries, and would have had the most to lose if conservative Republicans had managed to repeal the law.

Beyond that, it’s now clear that very few people other than wealthy taxpayers were hurt by health reform, which was designed to disrupt existing health arrangements as little as possible.

So once again: What was Obamacare rage about?

Much of it was orchestrated by pressure groups like Freedom Works, and it’s a good guess that some of the “ordinary citizens” who appeared at town halls actually were rightwing activists. Still, there was plenty of genuine popular rage, stoked by misinformation and outright lies from the usual suspects: Fox News, talk radio and so on.

The question then becomes why so many people believed these lies. The answer, I believe, comes down to a combination of identity politics and affinity fraud.

Whenever I see someone castigating liberals for engaging in identity politics, I wonder what such people imagine the right has been doing all these years. For generations, conservatives have conditioned many Americans to believe that safety-net programs are all about taking things away from white people and giving stuff to minorities.

And those who stoked Obamacare rage were believed because they seemed to some Americans like their kind of people — that is, white people defending them against you-know-who.