The Hill
January 30, 2014
Support for ObamaCare remains low, but the public largely favors making changes to the law rather than repealing it, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Thursday.
The survey found that 50 percent have a negative view of the Affordable Care Act, against only 34 percent who have a positive view. That’s the same negative margin from November, but up slightly from December, when 48 percent had a negative view vs. 34 percent positive.
However, a strong majority – 55 percent – said they accept ObamaCare as settled law that should be improved, rather than repealed. Only 38 percent said they support continued efforts to repeal it.
Thirty-one percent who have a negative view of the law say it should be fixed, rather than repealed.
President Obama needled Republicans over their repeal efforts at the State of the Union address on Tuesday.
He acknowledged that he would never “convince my Republican friends on the merits of this law,” but urged them to stop with their repeal efforts and “tell America what you’d do differently.”
“Let’s see if the numbers add up, but let’s not have another 40-something votes to repeal a law that’s already helping millions of Americans like Amanda,” Obama said. “The first 40 were plenty. We got it. We all owe it to the American people to say what we’re for, not just what we’re against.”
On Monday, Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) released a substantial legislative blueprint for an ObamaCare alternative that abolishes the law’s federal mandates in favor of a voluntary system led by the states.
They hope their colleagues will work on the outline and turn it into a bill that could potentially be signed into law by 2016.
But more than likely, changes to the law will be initiated by vulnerable Democrats in the Senate, who fear voter backlash against the unpopular law.
The Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 1,506 adults was conducted between Jan. 14 and Jan. 21 and has a 3 percentage point margin of error.