Poll: Americans dislike GOP-Trump plan on health care

Washington — Note to President Donald Trump and House Republicans: People really don’t like your approach to overhauling America’s health care. If you’re hoping to revive the effort, you may want to try something different.

Sixty-two percent of Americans turned thumbs down on Trump’s handling of health care during the initial weeks of his presidency, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released Wednesday. It was his worst rating among seven issues the poll tested, including the economy, foreign policy and immigration.

Of six changes the failed House GOP bill would have made to President Barack Obama’s law, five drew more negative than positive reviews.

An overwhelming 8 in 10 opposed the Republican proposal to let insurers boost premiums on older people. Seven in 10 disapproved of premium surcharges for people whose coverage lapses.

By wide margins, people also disliked proposed cuts in Medicaid, which helps lower-earning people cover medical costs, a halt in federal payments to Planned Parenthood and a transformation of the Obama law’s subsidies — based on income and premium costs — into aid linked to age.

“His campaign promise was great health care for everyone, for all Americans at great prices,” said Raymond Brown, 64, a Republican and retired truck driver from Rio Grande, N.J. “He isn’t fulfilling his campaign promise.”

Overall, just over half in the poll said they worry many Americans would have lost coverage had the GOP bill become law. Would their own families and average Americans have been better or worse off? More said worse.

The results underscore that annulling Obama’s statute is not an issue to be trifled with. More people support than oppose that law by 45 percent to 38 percent, a slightly narrower margin than in January. And a slender majority say covering all Americans is a federal responsibility — a view embraced by Democrats but not Republicans, who instead focus on access and lower premiums.

The survey was conducted over five days preceding and following last Friday’s withdrawal of the GOP health care bill. Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., short-circuited a House vote that would have spelled defeat for the Republican legislation because of opposition from conservative and moderate Republicans. It was a mortifying setback for Trump and his party.