Republicans love Obamacare
by David Atkins
Greg Sargent has a cheeky and dismaying post about the Affordable Care Act over at The Plum Line:
What’s particularly interesting about this poll is that solid majorities of Republicans favor most of the law’s main provisions, too.
I asked Ipsos to send over a partisan breakdown of the data. Key points:
* Eighty percent of Republicans favor “creating an insurance pool where small businesses and uninsured have access to insurance exchanges to take advantage of large group pricing benefits.” That’s backed by 75 percent of independents.
* Fifty-seven percent of Republicans support “providing subsidies on a sliding scale to aid individuals and families who cannot afford health insurance.” That’s backed by 67 percent of independents.
* Fifty-four percent of Republicans favor “requiring companies with more than 50 employees to provide insurance for their employers.” That’s backed by 75 percent of independents.
* Fifty two percent of Republicans favor “allowing children to stay on parents insurance until age 26.” That’s backed by 69 percent of independents.
* Seventy eight percent of Republicans support “banning insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions; 86 percent of Republicans favor “banning insurance companies from cancelling policies because a person becomes ill.” Those are backed by 82 percent of independents and 87 percent of independents.
* One provision that isn’t backed by a majority of Republicans: The one “expanding Medicaid to families with incomes less than $30,000 per year.”
“Most Republicans want to have good health coverage,” Ipsos research director Chris Jackson tells me. “They just don’t necessarily like what it is Obama is doing.”
The other thing Republicans don’t like is the mandate, of course. Not that Tea Partiers in California are in mass revolt over every driver in the state being required to have car insurance.
Basically, Republicans are uninformed, angry people who would totally like most of what’s in the Affordable Care Act, except for the fact that Democrats passed it. So I guess the 2010 election was a mandate…for something or other.
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