When asked whether they love or hate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Americans remain strongly divided by political affiliation. But in general, the gap between "favorable" and "unfavorable" viewpoints has narrowed to a record low.
It's a short record time — Kaiser Family Foundation, which did the survey, has only been doing it since PPACA was signed into law in 2010, and respondents have only had a couple years of actual experience with the law. But the fact that "favorable" responses have risen from a low of 33 percent in late 2013 to 41 percent today suggests an increasing segment of the American public is finding value in the reform effort.
Unfavorable still outweighs favorable, but only by a 43 percent to 41 percent margin.
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The poll results come just days before PPACA celebrates its fifth anniversary March 23.
Kaiser characterized the findings as "the closest split between favorable and unfavorable views of the law since fall 2012 and a significant uptick in favorable views from the low in November 2013 during the law's troubled rollout. … While most Americans continue to say the law has not had a direct impact on their families, the March poll finds a narrower gap than in recent polls between the shares with positive and negative perceptions of the impact on them: 19 percent of the public says the law has helped their families and 22 percent say it has hurt them. Republicans are more likely to report being hurt and Democrats are more likely to report being helped, consistent with previous tracking polls."
The political party splits are dramatic. Three-quarters of Republicans take a dim view of reform, while 65 percent of Democrats give it a thumbs up. Independents are, well, independent: 37 for PPACA and 47 percent against. (Some just don't know or don't care, accounting for the rest of the 100 percent.)
Despite this split along party lines, the gap narrows when folks are asked whether they think a rejection of health premium subsidies by the U.S. Supreme Court in King v. Burwell would hurt or benefit the country.
"A majority of the public, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents, says that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, the result would have a negative impact on the country (62 percent) and the uninsured (57 percent). In addition, across party lines, about half say the impact on people receiving financial help from the government to buy insurance would be negative," Kaiser said.
At the same time, Kaiser found that the vast majority of those interviewed had no idea what King v. Burwell was about. The percent who said they knew "a lot" about the case rose from 5 percent to 9 percent between January 2015 and the recent survey, while the percent that knew nothing dropped slightly, from 56 percent to 53 percent. Still, more than 90 percent were basically clueless about the case.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
