Polls: Little Support for Obamacare
Multiple polls show that Americans are still divided on the issue of healthcare, and more often than not, they disapprove of the new healthcare bill.
More Americans oppose the new bill than support it, according to a poll published Sunday by the Washington Post. According to the Post, 50% of the respondents opposed the recent healthcare reform, and 46% supported the changes. The report states that the poll results remain “virtually identical” to those recorded prior to the healthcare vote.
“More people see the changes as making things worse, rather than better, for the country’s healthcare system, for the quality of their care and, among the insured, for their coverage,” the paper reported.
“Majorities in the new poll also see the changes as resulting in higher costs for themselves and for the country,” the report continued. Two-thirds of the respondents said that the changes to healthcare would increase the federal budget deficit, contrary to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) statement that the healthcare bill would reduce the deficit.
The poll was conducted from March 23-26, drawing from a sample of 1,000 adults from around the nation. Other polls generally support the Post’s data.
A Rasmussen Reports survey said that 54% of the “nation’s likely voters” support the repeal of the healthcare bill, while 42% opposed such an action.
The same poll reported that 55% of respondents believed the bill would increase the cost of health care, and just 17% believed that it would reduce the cost of health care.
Gallup ratings of President Obama showed a temporary spike in approval after the healthcare bill was passed, but the rise was negated by Monday’s report. The newest Gallup poll shows approval ratings of the President Obama at 46%, a figure which ties for the President’s lowest rating.
“It may simply be the case that there was an unusually unfavorable sample taken on the 26th,” the report stated. “On the other hand, it may be that in a Feiler-Faster world, the people processed the healthcare news quickly and then promptly forgot about it, reverting to their pre-signing impressions of Obama.”
A Quinnipiac University poll reveals that the majority of respondents oppose the bill at 49%, as compared with the 40% who approve of healthcare reform. The opposition numbers are down from data drawn prior to the healthcare vote.
And 51% of respondents answered that a state filing a lawsuit to stop the bill from taking effect would be a “bad idea.” Rasmussen Reports, on the contrary, showed 49% of respondents favoring a lawsuit by their state.
A sizeable majority of respondents of the Quinnipiac University poll thought that the healthcare reforms were too expansive and too expensive.
Some 46% answered that the changes to the healthcare system went “too far,” compared with 26% responding “not far enough” and 18% saying the changes were “just right.” And 57% said the changes were “too expensive,” compared with 34% who believed they were “just right.”
Quinnipiac University drew its results from a survey of 1,552 registered voters from around the nation, during March 22-23.
Although the majority of Americans oppose the bill, the Washington Post reported that Democrats have gained momentum recently from within their own party—56% of Democrats showed “strong support” for the bill, up from 41% in February.
Some of the bill’s staunchest opponents are senior citizens. Among respondents age 65 and older, most believed that the bill will worsen the Medicare system—over 60%. And 58% opposed the healthcare bill, many of them voicing strong opposition to it.
Some 32% of those polled said they would likely oppose a lawmaker who voted for the healthcare bill, 26% said they would support that candidate and 40% responded that a candidate’s healthcare vote would not make a difference in how they vote this November.
The Quinnipiac University poll reported that 38% would be “less likely” to vote for a candidate who supported the health care bill, with 25% responding “more likely” and 34% saying the candidate’s position would not make a difference in how they vote this fall.
“The overall political landscape continues to look favorable for Republicans to make gains in November,” the Post reports, “with six in 10 Americans seeing the country as pretty seriously off the wrong track and that broad dissatisfaction likely to fall hardest on incumbents.”