The Trump administration will have a battle on its hands if it persists in trying to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act — and not just between Republicans and Democrats, or between conservative and moderate Republicans. The American people are overwhelmingly opposed to efforts to repeal or derail the ACA.
The Hill reports that, according to the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, what 75 percent of Americans want instead is that the current administration "should do what they can" to make the ACA functional. Just 19 percent of respondents are in favor of Trump taking steps to make the ACA fail instead.
While it might be expected that the desire to make the ACA work was strongest among Democrats and independents, with 89 percent of Democrats and 78 percent of independents urging the administration to make the positive effort, the surprise is that a majority of Republicans are also rooting for Obama's health care plan to succeed.
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Fifty-one percent of Republicans want the administration to do what they can to make it work, while just 38 percent are in favor of the Trump team taking action to make the ACA crash and burn.
Oh, and most of them — both Democrats and Republicans — are either "relieved" (52 percent) or actually "happy" (44 percent) that the Republican repeal/replace effort failed; 64 percent of Americans say that failure was a "good thing." Among Republicans, 54 percent say it was a "bad thing."
Only 40 percent of respondents say they're "disappointed" that the American Health Care Act failed, and just 20 percent are actually "angry."
When citing the reason for the bill's failure, about half of the public (55 percent) say the AHCA failed because it cut existing programs too much. Naturally enough, more Democrats — 74 percent — and independents — 57 percent — feel that way, while 58 percent of Republicans say it failed because it didn't go far enough to unravel ACA provisions.
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