GOP plan to repeal Obamacare draws little support in new poll
Law expanded insurance to millions
WASHINGTON — The Republican plan to immediately do away with the Affordable Care Act and come up with a replacement later is out of sync with what most Americans want, according to a Kaiser Health Tracking poll. Only 1 in 5 people supports repealing President Obama’s health-care law before the replacement is worked out.
Republicans officially began the work to unravel the law this week, but a Trump transition team member told The Washington Post they had six months to come up with a replacement. The poll suggests the likely “repeal and delay” agenda, in which a replacement plan is crafted months after a vote to repeal parts of the law, isn’t supported by most voters.
Slightly more than a quarter of Americans wanted lawmakers to wait to repeal the law until the specific details of the replacement plan were announced. Nearly half of Americans oppose repeal of the law, which expanded insurance to more than 20 million Americans and dropped the uninsured rate to its lowest level since before the Great Recession.
“For me, the really pertinent question, the big question, is: Is there a mandate for repealing the ACA without a replacement plan?” said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “What we see in our poll and what we see in our focus groups is: If there is, it is a very weak one. It’s not obvious there’s a mandate for repealing the ACA without putting a replacement plan on the table.”
Health care was among the top three issues for all voters, according to the poll, but the Affordable Care Act was not the top priority for most people. Consumer issues, such as decreasing out-of-pocket costs for health care and lowering prescription drug costs were ranked as a top priority by more people than repealing the law.
In an interview earlier this week, J. Mario Molina, chief executive of Molina Healthcare, which sells insurance on the exchanges, argued that even Americans who don’t get their insurance through the law’s exchanges need to be paying attention to the debate.
“I don’t think the average citizen understands what’s going on — or what a big impact this will have on their lives,” Molina said. “We’re talking about really reforming the whole health-care system, and there’s going to be a ripple effect, and it’s going to ripple through all insurance coverage. So I think everyone needs to be concerned.”