Obamacare and Medicaid enjoy far more public support than the emerging Republican health care plan, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
A majority of Americans now say they like Obamacare. That’s a first.
Half of Americans also said they would be better off if Obamacare remained the law of the land.
Kaiser Family Foundation
Dylan Scott covers health for Vox, guiding readers through the emerging opportunities and challenges in improving our health. He has reported on health policy for more than 10 years, writing for Governing magazine, Talking Points Memo, and STAT before joining Vox in 2017.
Republicans, including those in the Senate who will likely vote on their health care bill next week, have justified overhauling the 2010 health care law and Medicaid in part because they say the programs are unpopular and aren’t working.
But Americans seem to prefer the first two while being wary of the GOP’s plan, the new Kaiser poll found.
A majority of Americans, 51 percent, have a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act, the law’s highest mark ever in the seven-year tracking poll; 41 percent said they had an unfavorable view.
Kaiser Family Foundation
Half of Americans also said they thought they would be better off if Obamacare remained the law of the land, versus 36 percent who thought they would be better off under the Republican bill.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell unveiled a bill Thursday that would keep much of Obamacare’s private insurance market, but reduces its financial assistance and weakens its insurance regulations. The bill also dramatically overhauls Medicaid, both by ending Obamacare’s expansion of the program and placing a federal spending cap on it for the first time.
It resembles the earlier House bill in important ways, remaking Medicaid and decreasing the federal support for people to buy private insurance. But the Senate did make a few changes, incorporating more of Obamacare’s infrastructure.
Either way, the Kaiser poll found that the public doesn’t like what they know of the plan that congressional Republicans are producing: 55 percent of Americans said they had an unfavorable view; 30 percent had a favorable view. Even Republican support for the bill is retreating: 69 percent of Trump supporters said in May that they backed the GOP’s plan. That dropped to 55 percent in June.
Kaiser Family Foundation
Medicaid is also substantially more popular than the GOP’s proposal, which would include deep spending cuts to the program. Nearly three-quarters of Americans, 74 percent, said they favored Medicaid. Two-thirds said they thought the program was working well in their state.
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