Poll: Obamacare Support Hits New Low

Support for the health care reform law is at its lowest point since it was enacted four years ago, according to a new poll.

The Associated Press survey found that only 26 percent of Americans support the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. Forty-three percent said they are opposed to the law. The poll was conducted online, and online polls are typically not as accurate as telephone polls. But the results nevertheless point to political peril for Democratic congressional candidates in the midterm elections, with Republicans again running against the law across the country.

The results also differ from a recently released Kaiser Family Foundation poll that found support for the Affordable Care Act was at 38 percent, though more Americans had unfavorable views of the law. About 46 percent of Americans surveyed by the Kaiser Family Foundation were opposed to the law in March.

Despite their opposition, the majority of Americans don’t think the law is going anywhere, according to the AP poll. Only 13 percent of those surveyed said they think it will be repealed. About seven in 10, however, believe a bipartisan package of changes to the law will be implemented, though opinions vary on how large or minor the changes will be. Republicans continue to push for wholesale repeal, but the law continues to be implemented, and repeal is an even more distant possibility than it was before. The White House said Thursday that more than six million Americans have signed up for new health insurance through the law’s federal and state insurance exchanges.

Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said there were problems when someone in their household tried to sign up, reflecting the widespread early problems with Healthcare.gov and the other state exchanges, many of which have since been fixed.

The poll of 1,012 American adults was conducted between March 20 and March 24, and has a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

[AP]