Americans Say NO To Obamacare Repeal

The Republicans in Congress are banking on their efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to convince voters to re-elect them in 2014. And they like to point to polls to show they are on solid ground. After all, several polls (like the Gallup Poll that showed 54% opposed Obamacare) have shown that a majority don't like Obamacare.

But those polls, and the Republicans touting them, have not dug deep enough to get to the truth of the matter. There is a significant portion of the electorate that, if asked whether they support Obamacare, will say no -- but they don't want it repealed. They want it strengthened. I am one of those people. If asked, I would have to admit that I don't like Obamacare. That's because I don't think it went nearly far enough in trying to fix our broken health care system. And it's respondents like me that have made these polls give the false impression that most people want Obamacare to be repealed.

I don't want Obamacare to be repealed, and neither do the others who think it didn't go far enough. While it did not fix all of the problems inherent in our health care system, it did fix a few of them -- and fixing some things is much better than fixing nothing. Most polls have just been asking the wrong question.

A new poll is out that asks the right questions -- the United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll (conducted between July 18th and 21st of 1,000 nationwide adults -- with a margin of error of 3.6 points). This poll asked people whether they would prefer to see Obamacare repealed, whether they would prefer to wait and see how it worked, or whether they would like to strengthen it (see bottom chart above).

The results were that a majority wanted to either wait and see how it worked (30%), or to strengthen it right now (27%). This means that 57% of the public do not want to see Obamacare repealed, while only 36% would like it repealed (and 7% are unsure). I think this poll more closely represents the feelings of the general public -- because it allows people like me to register our dissatisfaction with Obamacare not going far enough, without being misunderstood (thinking we favor repeal).

The truth is that most Americans don't want Obamacare repealed -- and that includes many of us who didn't think it went nearly far enough. The Republicans are just engaging in self-delusion if they think their attempts to repeal Obamacare will help them at the polls in 2014.