New poll numbers show danger of GOP anti-ACA strategy
by David Atkins
It looks like the recent spate of good news about Affordable Care Act enrollments is rubbing off on the American people:
Public support for the Affordable Care Act narrowly notched a new high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, while criticism of Barack Obama’s handling of the law’s rollout – although still substantial – has eased from its peak last fall.
Views hardly are enthusiastic: With the year’s sign-up deadline upon us, Americans split on Obamacare, 49 percent in support, 48 percent opposed. But that compares with a 40-57 percent negative rating after the initial failure of the federal enrollment website last November.
While still shy of a majority, 49 percent support is numerically the highest on record – albeit by a single point – in more than 20 ABC/Post polls since August 2009. The previous high was 48 percent in November 2009. The low was 39 percent in April 2012; the average, 45 percent.
Taking it another way, while not statistically significant, this survey’s +1 positive score for the law is a first. Other than an even 47-47 percent in July 2012, it’s been numerically negative in every other measurement, ranging from -1 to last November’s -17, averaging -5 points.
Most of the advance in support for the law came in December, marking November’s sharply negative turn as a blip inspired by HealthCare.gov’s crash landing. Most of the gains in approval of Obama’s handling of the law, by contrast, occurred just in the past month.
Among groups, this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds that support for Obamacare compared with last November has gained among young adults, nonwhites, lower-income adults, those who lack a college degree – and, in a surprising result, political conservatives. While just 36 percent of conservatives back the law, that’s up from a mere 17 percent in the fall.
The GOP has put down all their chips on the anti-Obamacare strategy for 2014. They just allowed Paul Ryan to produce another hair-raisingly immoral budget that attempts to privatize Medicare, and they’re adamantly opposed to popular policies like immigration reform and raising the minimum wage. They’re counting on voters forgetting all of that out of opposition to the Affordable Care Act.
As Americans start to fully realize that the healthcare law–if not a perfect solution by any means–isn’t nearly the problem conservatives have been claiming it is, the GOP may find itself without a single decent campaign issue going into this year’s election.
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