ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the president, Barack Obama's surrogates and supporters, and the news media have contributed collectively to the term's proliferation, and identifies changes in how it has been presented in media coverage. News coverage in mainstream outlets, reaching a larger and more diverse audience than the president's base, tilted in a somewhat more positive direction for health-care reform where Obamacare was mentioned. Opponents to Democratic health-care reform plans get credit for adding Obamacare to the American political lexicon. Though Obama did not originate the nickname, which was first coined by a lobbyist in an obscure industry journal, presidential candidate Mitt Romney was the first prominent Republican politician to use the term in a critical, derogatory way. With President Obama in the White House actively pushing for and ultimately winning health-care reform's passage, the use of Obamacare by conservatives greatly intensified.
