Public Supports Insurance Subsidies (& A Public Option)

The Republicans in Congress are quickly acting to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), or at least defund it (which would effectively kill it). They have been lying about the program since it was passed, but what they still fail to realize is that most Americans don't want the program repealed. People understand that the program is not perfect, and most just want it fixed -- not repealed.

One aspect of Obamacare that Republican officials dislike the most is the providing of subsidies to help Americans buy health insurance. Once Obamacare is defunded, or repealed, this aspect would disappear -- and over 20 million Americans would lose the health insurance they have been able to get under Obamacare.

But the public does not want the subsidies to disappear. As the chart above shows, most Americans are in favor of providing government subsidies to help low income (and middle class) people buy the health insurance they need. Only a tiny minority opposes these subsidies.

And a majority of the public also supports something else that congressional Republicans oppose -- a public option for insurance to compete with private insurance (see chart below).

The Republicans are playing with fire in their efforts to repeal Obamacare, and they may find they will get burned.

These charts were made from information contained in a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between January 7th and 10th of a random national sample of 1,424 adults (including 1,237 registered voters), and has a margin of error of 3.1 points.