The American Health Care Act isn't popular and expectations are health care will get worse, not better, according to a new poll.
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds not only that the Affordable Care Act is more popular than the AHCA, but also the percentage of people expecting health care costs to rise has gone up sharply — from 28 percent in December to 45 percent now. They're not exactly optimistic about care quality, either, with about a third saying that they expect both quality of care and access to care to get worse.
Specifically, respondents see the AHCA as doing more harm to their health coverage than a straight repeal of the ACA. More than a third believe the AHCA will make it harder to get and keep health insurance, compared with 21 percent who see that happening with an ACA repeal. And 34 percent say the Republicans' efforts will probably make the quality of their health care worse, compared with 19 percent who say that about a repeal of the ACA.
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NPR reports 49 percent of poll respondents say they have a favorable view of the ACA, compared with just 31 percent who see the AHCA favorably. Predictably, views differ along party lines, with 78 percent of Democrats approving of the ACA and 67 percent of Republicans favoring the AHCA.
But that doesn't necessarily mean Republicans are happy with the AHCA. In fact, fewer than 10 percent of respondents want the AHCA passed as is, with around 30 percent saying it shouldn't be passed at all; another 26 percent say it needs a major overhaul first.
In addition, about 75 percent of respondents say the already-passed version of the AHCA doesn't keep Trump's health care promises, and two-thirds of respondents, including half of Republicans, say that President Trump and Republicans are responsible for any current and future problems with the existing ACA.
Most people, according to a report from The Hill, aren't happy with Republican efforts to repeal the ACA and replace it with the AHCA, or some version of it; 55 percent of respondents have an unfavorable view of the AHCA and say they want the Senate to either make major changes to the House bill or not pass it all. The Senate has previously said they're working on their own version of a repeal/replace bill.
And Kaiser Health News reports, despite their avowed support for the Republican version of health care, fewer than a fifth of Republicans are in favor of changing the provision that limits how much more insurers can charge older people for insurance compared with younger people. They're also not crazy about letting insurers charge sick people higher premiums if they have a break in coverage; just 22 percent of Republicans say they're in favor of such a change.
But people are taking a pessimistic view, with 74 percent saying it's "likely" that the ACA will be repealed and replaced. Considering that the AHCA would deprive 23 million people of health coverage over the next 10 years, that's a very gloomy outlook.
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