The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is still not fabulously popular, but according to a new Gallup poll, its standing among the American public has significantly improved in the past year.
The survey, conducted during the first week of July, found 47 percent of Americans support the health law, the highest level of approval since 2012. Opposition to President Obama's signature health policy now stands at 48 percent, the first time in nearly three years that it has dipped below 50 percent.
While Gallup notes that PPACA has never enjoyed high levels of support, its image appears to be recovering after taking a serious hit during the first months of its rollout. Marred by technical glitches and news that companies were dropping insurance coverage for millions in response to the law's minimum coverage requirements, the law became a lightning rod for public displeasure with the health system.
Recommended For You
Support for the law dropped to 38 percent in the wake of the setbacks. The law's approval rating dipped to 37 percent in the weeks following strong Republican gains in the 2014 midterm elections.
But that was then, and this is now. The latest 10 percent rise in approval for PPACA appears linked to the Supreme Court's King v. Burwell decision at the end of June upholding the law against its second major challenge. Support for the law now stands at roughly the same place it stood at the end of 2012, several months after the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the law's requirement that individuals purchase insurance.
Approval for the health law has risen among all demographic groups. Support among non-whites stands at 68 percent, while support among whites is only 38 percent. Approval for the law also differs greatly between age groups, with 54 percent of adults below the age of 30 supporting the law compared to only 41 percent of those 65 and above.
Partisan identification is unsurprisingly the greatest predictor of support for the law. While approval among Democrats has risen to 86 percent, the law only enjoys a 41 percent approval rating among independents and a 14 percent approval rating among Republicans. Gallup notes that it is difficult to determine how much the hike in approval for the law is simply a reflection of a similar rise in approval for President Obama.
For better or worse, a slight majority of Americans (55 percent) still say PPACA has not affected them personally. In comparison, 18 percent say the law has helped them while 25 percent say the law has hurt them.
Individuals' perceptions of how the law has impacted them is clearly shaped by their politics, as 40 percent of Republicans claim the law has hurt them, while only 7 percent say it has helped them. Conversely, 30 percent of Democrats believe they have been helped by the law, while only 9 percent say they have been hurt by it.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
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.
