Whatever your opinion of Obamacare/The Affordable Care Act is, I at least hope you can differentiate between the two enough to know that they are, in fact, the same thing. It seems that the whole different name thing is more than enough to throw people off. With that in mind, don’t be one of those people. If you’re going log on to Twitter/Facebook/comment section of your favorite online news resource to vent your spleen about Obamacare, no matter which side of the coin you fall on, make sure you know Obamacare is only Act’s nickname.

Unfortunately, as the following Jimmy Kimmel Live segment demonstrates, many anti-Obamacare folks were completely on board with the idea of The Affordable Care Act, proving once again just how powerful of a tool branding really is. Before that, the video:

After watching that, one wonders if the response would be better if The Affordable Care Act was nicknamed ObamaHasNothingToDoWithThiscare or ThisHealthCareActIsNotNamedAfterObamacare instead. Of course, those don’t lend themselves to a manageable hashtags, and considering the all out Twitter war over this particular topic, we couldn’t have that, now could we?

As for the branding issue, this is a clear example of branding driving the public reaction. It’s also a clear cut case of just how effective branding alone can be when it comes to forming an opinion. People have become conditioned to react to the name “Obama,” much like casual computer users react favorably to new Apple products. Unfortunately for those who prefer signal to noise in their social media feeds, these reactions, informed or otherwise, are currently dominating the national discourse, and one could argue this entire discussion is being driven by the brand name assigned to the subject matter.

Just make sure you know that Obamacare is actually a nickname.

[Editors Note: One could also discern that people don’t associate something called “Affordable” with Obamacare since it is in fact increasing the cost of insurance and medical care.]

[Lead image via Wikipedia]