Most Adults Want Obamacare To Succeed

The charts in this post were made from information in the latest Pew Research Center survey on Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act). That survey was done between September 4th and 8th of 1,506 nationwide adults, and has a margin of error of 2.9 points.

Looking at the charts above, you might get the impression that I have not told the truth in the title of this post -- that most adults want Obamacare to succeed. After all, around 53% of the general public currently says they disapprove of Obamacare, while 42% say they approve of it (and 5% don't know whether they approve of it or not). And when you look at a demographic breakdown of Obamacare approval, only four groups (Democrats, Blacks, Hispanics, and those making less than $30k) show 50% or more approval. Numbers like that could fool a person into thinking that most Americans would like to see Obamacare repealed or defunded -- stopped in some way.

But that would be a mistake. While the congressional Republicans have looked at these kind of numbers and decided that most Americans approve of their efforts to repeal or defund Obamacare, they should have looked a little deeper. The survey asked another question of the 53% who said they disapproved of Obamacare, and found that most of them don't want to see Congress make the program fail. Note this chart:

About 27% of those saying they disapprove of Obamacare also say they want Congress to help it to succeed. And when you add those to the 42% who approve of the program, you find that around 69% of the public (or about 7 out of 10 Americans) don't want the program killed by Congress, while only 23% want Congress to make the program fail. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, many who disapprove of Obamacare (like me and many other progressives) are unhappy with it because it doesn't go far enough in changing our health care system -- but very few of those believing this want the program repealed or defunded (because some good change is better than no change at all). And the rest of that 27% (who disapprove but want it to succeed) are afraid of change, but like a lot of the changes (like no pre-existing conditions, no cap on medical costs by insurance companies, requiring 80% of premiums to be spent on medical care, allowing students to stay on parents' insurance through age 26, and free contraceptives for women). They want to keep these changes, so they want Congress to make Obamacare work.

The Republicans are once again acting in opposition to the wishes of a substantial majority of Americans when it comes to Obamacare (just like they are on their proposals for Social Security and Medicare, raising taxes for the wealthy, and raising the minimum wage). Only 23% of the public like their efforts to repeal or defund Obamacare.

Finally, there is one more chart that can help explain why many Americans are afraid of Obamacare.

Note that everyone seems to be aware of the requirement to purchase insurance. This is not surprising, because the Republicans have been preaching on this for many months now (trying to scare Americans into believing this will affect most of them as a new tax). Of course, that is ridiculous -- since this provision will not affect most Americans at all. It will actually affect only a tiny percentage.

But two other aspects of Obamacare, parts of the program that will affect much larger percentages of the population, are not known by half or more of all adults (except those approving of Obamacare, who seem to be better informed about the program as a whole). Many people will be affected by the state exchanges (which will allow them to buy less expensive insurance with same benefits), and many will also be able to get government subsidies to help them buy insurance. I expect many more Americans will approve of Obamacare once they understand these two aspects of the program.

In short, there are far too many people who still don't understand Obamacare. But even though that is true, most Americans don't want to give up the benefits from Obamacare that they have understood. They want it to succeed in lowering costs and extending benefits to most Americans.