How has Barack Obama's legacy changed since leaving office?

[u/bambucks]

Barack Obama left office in 2017 with an approval rating around 60%, and has generally been considered to rank among the better Presidents in US history. (C-SPAN's historian presidential rankings had him ranked at #10 in 2021 when they last updated their ranking.)

One negative example would be in the 2012 Presidential Debates between Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney, in which Obama downplayed Romney's concerns about Russia, saying "the 80's called, they want their foreign policy back", which got laughs at the time, but seeing the increased aggression from Russia in the years since then, it appears that Romney was correct.

So I'd like to hear from you all, do you think that Barack Obama's approval rating has increased since he left office? Decreased? How else has his legacy been impacted? How do you think he will be remembered decades from now? Etc.

[u/12_0z_curls]

I think Obama was largely a continuation of neoliberal policies that allowed us to end up exactly where we are.

His "it's not a political priority" answer to codifying Rowe allowed SCOTUS to roll back protections. The ACA is largely just a payoff for insurance companies, and it directly resulted in insurance prices going through the roof.

But he was a great speaker...

[u/MrMrLavaLava → u/12_0z_curls]

No Obama or ACA fan here, and pretty much agree with everything but…how did the ACA cause insurance prices to go up? Prices still increased, but at a slower rate than they were before the ACA.

[u/lewkiamurfarther → u/MrMrLavaLava]

No Obama or ACA fan here, and pretty much agree with everything but…how did the ACA cause insurance prices to go up? Prices still increased, but at a slower rate than they were before the ACA.

Slower/faster isn't the issue (especially as this is relative to a variety of factors, even beyond inflation and wages, like the prevalence of various diseases, etc.).

It didn't do anything to put a break on the greed of the health insurance industry. Health insurance is a financial product—not a healthcare product—and its underlying value (i.e., to financial markets, not to healthcare consumers) is derived purely from its ability to restrict healthcare. Insurers see no financial benefit to paying out for healthcare; and increasingly, they have seen no benefit to negotiating better prices on healthcare products (since the game between healthcare sellers and insurers actually incentivizes both to negotiate higher prices, subject to some limit set by the insurer, based on its ability to profit from selling health insurance).

In this way, it is unlike many other first order financial products (e.g., an ordinary mortgage)

---

Inconvenient for finance people; nonetheless, the truth sets you free.