Obama's Bad Week

It’s been a rough week for President Obama, with his approval ratings hitting new lows, a loss for his ally Alex Sink in Florida, declining Obamacare enrollment rates, trouble brewing between the Senate and his own administration’s CIA, and new problems with Obamacare’s mandates. James Freeman has detailed this list in The Wall Street Journal. It seems you reap what you sow.

A NEW LOW IN WSJ/NBC
It’s been a rough 24 hours for the President and his party, and now the Journal is reporting results from its latest poll: ” Mr. Obama’s job approval ticked down to 41% in March from 43% in January, marking a new low. Some 54% disapproved of the job he is doing, matching a previous high from December, when the botched rollout of his signature health law played prominently in the news. The latest survey also showed the lowest-ever approval in Journal/NBC polling for Mr. Obama’s handling of foreign policy.”

A LOSS IN FLORIDA
In a special election to fill a House seat in a district carried by Barack Obama in 2012,Republican David Jolly has beaten well-known Democrat Alex Sink. Their sharpest and most prominent disagreement was over the Affordable Care Act, underlining the challenge facing Congressional Democrats who voted for the law in 2010 and now seek re-election this fall.

DECLINING OBAMACARE ENROLLMENTS
In February fewer Americans signed up for insurance via the Affordable Care Act’s new exchanges than in January. “The proportion of younger Americans signing up for coverage has also remained stuck below the numbers believed to be necessary to keep premiums stable,” reports the Journal. “In all, 25% of people who have signed up are young adults, which remains well short of analysts’ estimates, based on census data, that around 40% of people for whom the exchanges are intended are between the ages of 18 and 34.” The Journal adds that “the administration hasn’t been able to say how many people who obtained coverage through the exchanges previously had insurance, as opposed to those gaining coverage for the first time. It also isn’t yet clear how many people have paid their first month’s premium, showing they have fully committed to purchasing a policy.”

Read more here.