“Obamacare” Became a Defining Word for Nearly a Decade of Political Messaging
An Example of a Republican Portmanteau
As someone who looks at official congressional communications nearly everyday, there are a lot of things that I get to notice about how Republicans and Democrats use language. Something Republicans are really good at are portmanteaus. A portmanteau is a word that blends the sounds and meanings of two (or I guess it could be even more) words into a single new word.
The DCinbox project started in 2009 and was fully functional by January 1, 2010. The first widely deployed portmanteau from the Republican Party was “Obamacare”. The
first use of the term in 2010 came from Congresswoman Judy Biggert (R-OH) on January 8 when she included an article from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board arguing against the process to pass Obamacare. The term had been created earlier and was used by House Republican Leader, John Boehner (R-OH) in his August 18, 2009 BOEHNER E-BULLETIN.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the legislation being referred to as Obamacare) was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, but the term continued to be used in the following years while members of the Republican party argued that they would “repeal and replace” the law. It took a little time to catch on, but the term soon started to appear in hundreds of Republican authored e-newsletters peaking in 2013 when over 1,400 official e-newsletters, making up nearly 25% of all sent from Republicans.
One of the periods when “Obamacare” got a lot of air time in 2013 was during the 16 day government shutdown in October. House Republicans (then a majority) tried to use a number of legislative vehicles to try to delay and dismantle the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but given that Democrats were in the majority in the Senate and Obama was in the White House, none of these attempts were successful. Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) offered this description of events to constituents:
Some congressional Democrats eventually began to use Obamacare in their communications. The first Democratic mention was from Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) on March 12, 2010 when he sent a New York Times article by Paul Krugman that used the term. On July 22, 2011 Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (D-NMI) (and, yes, he is a favorite of mine - just say his name out loud and you’ll understand part of it) wrote to constituents about the benefits of the new law while explaining that the term was generally from Republican critics.
All said, Democrats have sent a total of 709 messages using Obamacare, while Republicans have sent 9,941 over the past 15 years. In 2017 some congressional Democrats started to use the term “Trumpcare” following a New Yorker article, but it’s only been in a total of 238 communications.
Republicans invented and were very good at repeating the portmanteau to criticize the underlying policy and also to make sure Obama could be a target long after the actual law was implemented. Today “Obamacare” is still used and democrats, who were initially resistant, eventually adopted the term. It was much more successful that Obamanomics which was only ever used in 27 official e-newsletters or Obamaphone which was in just 12.
In 2009 I was 23 years old and just getting started on political communications research, as I watched Obamacare rise and fall I began to appreciate the strategy of Republican led messaging, and in the years since I’ve had many more opportunities. If you are a paying subscribed and you have any curiosities that you want to learn more about, send me a message and I’ll put it in the hopper.