Let that sink in: What that means is that regardless of how bad the old system—the system that for whatever reason left them uninsured—was, a majority of people without health coverage now think that Obamacare makes it worse.
That’s how poorly the rollout of the health law is perceived to have gone. The exact group the law was designed to help have instead turned on the law. It’s never been particularly popular with the wider public, but now even those who were supposed to be beneficiaries are skeptical.
That’s more than a political problem. It’s a policy problem—a threat to the law’s viability, especially when combined with other recent poll numbers showing that young people, who are crucial to the law’s coverage scheme, are rejecting the law as well. A Harvard Institute of Politics Poll released earlier this month found that 56 percent of young adults age 18-29 don’t approve of the health law. Only 29 percent of uninsured young adults said they expected to enroll.
As the sharp declines of the last few months show, poll numbers can always shift, sometimes rapidly. But if these low numbers persist, it represents a body blow for the law. It’s telling that Americans are now so soured on Obamacare that a majority say they would prefer to go back to the old system, flaws and all. As this week’s Reason-Rupe poll found, 55 percent of Americans now say they prefer the old, pre-Obamacare health care regime.
Numbers like those will help fuel efforts to repeal or otherwise block the law, regardless of whether or not there’s a replacement. They should also make Obamacare-friendly Democrats up for reelection more than a little nervous.
