Obamacare has now been unpopular for more than an Olympiad—an amazing feat for a law that’s just now going into effect. It’s been unpopular since the summer of 2009—which, come to think of it, is about the time that President Obama first starting saying that if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan; if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor; and if you’d like some oceanfront property in Arizona, you can have some oceanfront property in Arizona.  But it’s particularly interesting to see how much less popular Obamacare has become over the past year.

When Obama won reelection in 2012 over a moderate northeastern Republican who’d never taken a memorable stand against Obamacare, he did so in spite of his centerpiece legislation—not because of it.  In an election that Obama won by 4 percentage points (51 to 47 percent), exit polling showed that Americans opposed Obamacare by 5 percentage points (44 percent wanted it to be kept or expanded; 49 percent wanted some or all of it to be repealed).  So, Obama’s namesake ran about 10 points behind Obama.