Initial public reactions to the Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act are divided, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds, with a narrow plurality of Americans saying the proposal would mark a step down.
While 27 percent of Americans expect the new health care bill, if it passes, would be better than the current law, 32 percent think it would be worse, and 13 percent that it would be about the same. Another 28 percent aren’t sure.
The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has long been relatively unpopular with the public, but has now seen a surge of goodwill in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s election, with most surveys released since the inauguration giving the law a net positive rating. In the HuffPost/YouGov survey, 47 percent of Americans view the Affordable Care Act favorably, and 41 percent unfavorably; HuffPost Pollster’s aggregate gives it an average 48/43 favorable rating.
GOP intraparty fractures on the new bill, which Trump has praised but conservative legislators have criticized, have not gone unnoticed by the public. While a majority of Americans believe Trump backs the bill, just 11 percent say that Republicans in Congress are united in support of it. Fifty-eight percent are aware that some Republicans are opposed.
Nevertheless, with much about the Republican proposal still up in the air, public opinion divides largely, if not universally, along partisan lines. Democrats are 43 percentage points likelier than Republicans, at 68 percent to 25 percent, to favor the current health care law.
Sixty-three percent of Republicans say the new bill, if passed, would likely be better than the current health care law, with 14 percent expecting it to be about the same, and just 6 percent saying that it would be worse. In contrast, 54 percent of Democrats say the new bill would be worse, with 11 percent expecting it to be an improvement and another 11 percent believing it wouldn’t be much different.
The split along the lines of last year’s election is even starker. Voters for Democratic contender Hillary Clinton are 64 points likelier than Trump voters, 81 percent to 17 percent, to hold a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act. Just over two-thirds of Clinton voters expect that the Republican proposal to be worse than the current law, while roughly the same percentage of Trump voters say it would be an improvement.
The rest of the nation ― those who didn’t vote, along with the fraction who supported a third-party candidate ― are mostly reserving judgment, with a 41 percent plurality saying they’re not sure.
Use the widget below to further explore the results of HuffPost/YouGov’s survey,using the menu at the top to select survey questions and the buttons at the bottom to filter the data by subgroups:
The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted March 8-9 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls.You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov’s nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here. More details on the polls’ methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov’s reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample, rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.