Americans Overwhelmingly Want Obamacare To Succeed

With the 2014 election starting to heat up, politicians still seem to think the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will be an issue. Republicans are running hard against the law (still talking about repealing or defunding it), and Democrats are running away from it (thinking it might hurt their chances of being elected). The politicians in both political parties are wrong.

The two charts above were made from information contained in a new Pew Research Center survey. The survey was done between February 27th and March 16th of a random national sample of 3,335 adults, and has a margin of error of only 2 points for the total sample. The margin of error for each political group was 4.1 for Republicans, 3.5 for Democrats, and 3.1 for Independents.

If a person only looked at the results when respondents were asked if they approved or disapproved of Obamacare, they might think it was smart for a politician to run against or run away from Obamacare -- because the survey shows that 53% of the people say they disapprove, while about 41% say they approve. But that question doesn't tell the whole story, and it certainly doesn't mean the people would like to see Obamacare fail (or be defunded or repealed).

When Pew asked a second question, it became readily apparent that a huge majority of Americans (slightly more than 7 out of 10) want to see Obamacare succeed. Pew asked respondents what the elected officials should do with Obamacare, and a whopping 71% said they should work to make the program succeed. Only 19% said they should work to make it fail, and 5% were unsure about what they should do. This was the feeling of all groups -- even the Republicans, who had a plurality of 48% saying politicians should work to make Obamacare succeed. The only group wanting elected officials to work to make Obamacare fail was the teabaggers (60%).

While it may be smart for Republicans to run against Obamacare in their primaries (because those primaries are controlled by teabaggers in many states), it would not be a smart position for them to take in the general election. And it is not smart for Democrats to distance themselves from the program, as many are trying to do.

While many Americans are still unsure about Obamacare, they do not want it to fail. They do not want to go back to what we had before the Affordable Care Act was passed. The politicians of both parties should be running on a platform of making Obamacare succeed for the good of all Americans.