It is an article of faith among many Republicans that the Democratic Party supports increased spending on social programs in a cynical effort to ensnare hapless voters in a web of dependency. If that is, in fact, the case, the tactic has been a miserable failure; the elderly, who rely heavily on transfer payments, are among the most reliable GOP voters, and the poorest states in the country are among the deepest red.
How do we account for this apparent paradox? It all comes down to the illusion of entitlement; there is widespread public support for spending on “entitlement” programs that appear to be tied to work. Tariffs and minimum wages are effectively government redistribution programs, just like, say, food stamps, but the average voter does not perceive them in the same way, because the benefits have to be “earned” through labor. In the same vein, Social Security and Medicare are essential parts of the welfare state, not private insurance programs, but because the elderly have paid into the system for years, they feel entitled to payments that are typically in excess of what they would have earned from an insurance program even though, from a legal perspective, they have no property rights to any of the funds in the system.
So the key to creating a politically successful welfare state program is to hide its true nature. That is where Obamacare failed; the public correctly viewed it as an attempt to redistribute wealth.