Jack Tame: Obamacare wins ... its creator loses

Obama now has fewer friends than at any other time in the White House. Photo / AP

Opinion

I am losing my health insurance.

After paying more than US$15,000 ($19,500) in premiums over the past three years and never claiming for so much as a doctor's visit, I received a letter this week explaining that my policy is being ended.

Apparently I have Obamacare to blame. Although I'll be enrolled in a new programme with similar low-end coverage, at the very least the President's biggest political achievement will cost me in inconvenience. This despite his promise that this would never be the case.

Lots of Americans have gripes, big and small, with the way Obama's healthcare reform works. But it's absurd that the President's fellow Democrats still distance themselves from the legislation.

Before Obamacare, millions of people couldn't afford health insurance. Now, every American has access. It might be a finicky beast, but surely it's a no-brainer Obama win?

Americans are dissatisfied with many things: Isis, Ebola, slow economic growth and the National Security Agency. Given the circumstances, you'd have expected the Democrats would own every political victory; some of their midterm election candidates wouldn't even say if they voted for Obama in the last election.

Indeed, Obama now has fewer friends than at any other time in the White House. His approval ratings are at their lowest level. Hope and change and all that jazz are long gone. If the 2010 midterms result was a "shellacking" for the Democrats, to use the President's description, Wednesday's result was a one-two kidney punch.

With two years left in Obama's Presidency, what can we expect from Washington? More political impasse, punctuated by executive orders. The Republicans control Congress and probably won't support the President any more than in the past six years, but I expect he'll use executive power to push through immigration reform without their approval.

The US voting public is weary. Many of my friends conceded they hadn't bothered registering for the midterms.

Although the result mightn't change much, as Obama proved, all it takes is a little inspiration to re-energise the masses. A Republican or a Democrat? Let the 2016 race begin.

• Jack Tame is on NewstalkZB Saturdays, 9am-midday.