Jimmy Kimmel Asks Americans ‘Which Is Better? The Affordable Care Act Or Obamacare?’… Even Though They’re The Same Thing [VIDEO]
In a four-minute clip, Jimmy Kimmel proved what many of us already knew: most Americans are uninformed about health care legislation. In a series of street interviews, a reporter from Jimmy Kimmel Live asks passersby which is better — the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare?
Hilarity ensues.
“It’s nice everyone can afford it and everyone should be able to afford it, but to force people to pay something and then doctors to make something, limiting their ability to do their job, that’s kind of anti-American,” one man said when asked about Obamacare. “[The Affordable Care Act] is more American because it allows people to make their own choices about what they want and who they want to work with.”
What Kimmel’s street reporter found is consistent with what surveys discovered in the days and weeks leading up to open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act’s health care exchanges. Apparently, people are in favor of the Affordable Care Act, but aren’t too keen on Obamacare — even though they’re the same exact thing.
Last week, CNBC released the results of a poll that found that Americans who said they were against Obamacare said that they supported the Affordable Care Act. There was a nine percent difference depending on the name, with 37 percent saying that they opposed the initiative when it was called “the Affordable Care Act” and 46 percent saying they opposed the initiative when it was called “Obamacare.”
President Obama, confident that the health care law — regardless of what we call it — will be beneficial to millions of Americans, joked that people will be reluctant to call it “Obamacare” once they realize how well it’s working.
"When people are using this to get coverage and everybody is feeling pretty good about all the choices and competition that they've got, there are going to be a whole bunch of folks who say, yes, I always thought this provision was excellent," Obama said. "I voted for that thing. You watch. Once it’s working really well, it will not be called Obamacare."
Watch Jimmy Kimmel Live’s hilarious street interviews below: