A cogent answer from Cato Institute scholar, Ilya Shapiro (from a footnote in his recent law review article, "A Long, Strange Trip: My First Year Challenging the Constitutionality of Obamacare"):
“I use the term because most people colloquially refer to it that way—though those who support it use quotation marks—in large part because it’s much easier to say than ‘PPACA,’ ‘Affordable Care Act,’ or any other more technical term. While thought in some quarters to be pejorative, I’ve never understood how that’s the case (unless said with a sneer, but by that standard anything can be pejorative). Even the leading academic supporters of Obamacare’s constitutionality, such as Yale law professors Akhil Amar and Jack Balkin (who both make cameo appearances toward the end of this article), say ‘Obamacare.’ The one semi-accurate criticism I’ve heard is that the law was mostly written by Congress, not the White House—for which the president got plenty of heat from the Left. But that just means it would be better to call it Pelosi-Reid-care, which presumably is no more or less pejorative. In any event, that ship has sailed.”
My knee-jerk reaction to the title "Affordable Health Care" is that the use of the adjective "affordable" may be a euphemism provoking cynicism. Truthfully, no one has proven that we as a nation can afford this new directive. CBO estimates for Medicare and Medicaid and similar entitlements have been vastly underestimated in the past and I see no reason why this is going to be any better.
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