Anti-Obamacare ads may have helped to increase enrollment in blue states. Oops!

Courtesy of the Indy Channel:  

Congressional candidates opposed to the Affordable Care Act have spent $450 million on commercials attacking the controversial health care plan, but the effort seems to be backfiring in blue states. 

Anti-Obamacare advertisements in some liberally inclined states are actually helping health care exchange enrollments, according to a new Brookings Institution analysis. 

The study, done by Brookings fellow Niam Yaraghi, compared ACA enrollment data released by the Department of Health and Human Services in May to a map by Kantar Media CMAG that tracks anti-Obamacare ads across the United States. 

Yaraghi calculated a ratio based on the number of Obamacare enrollees divided by the number of people who potentially could have enrolled, and concluded that negative ads kept a lid on enrollment in red states and had the opposite effect in blue states.

The study  goes on to suggest that the ads led to increased awareness about the existence of a governmentally subsidized service and its benefits for the uninsured.

Or to summarize:

In other words, the commercials effectively acted as a PSA for the ACA.

Not only that but for those conservative Republicans who DID sign up for the program, despite advertisements warning them not to, the vast majority of them are quite happy they did: 

The survey, from the Commonwealth Fund, a research group, a research group, came to similar conclusions as other surveys about the expansion of health insurance. It found that about 15 percent of adults younger than 65 now lack health insurance, down from 20 percent before the Affordable Care Act rolled out in January. 

What was more surprising is that people who got the new coverage were generally happy with the product. Overall, 73 percent of people who bought health plans and 87 percent of those who signed up for Medicaid said they were somewhat or very satisfied with their new health insurance. Seventy-four percent of newly insured Republicans liked their plans. Even 77 percent of people who had insurance before – including members of the much-publicized group whose plans got canceled last year – were happy with their new coverage.

Overall I would say that the Republicans got their asses handed to them.

And not only that, but I would think that they lost a whole lot of potential voters who do not appreciate the fact that they were lied to about Obamacare, or have Republican governors who have not expanded Medicaid in their state, leaving them disillusioned with their party and with few options to receive the kind of coverage that they see other people enjoying in states with more reasonable administrations.