55% Favor Repeal of Health Care Law

Monday, August 22, 2011
many links on this post

Most voters still favor repeal of the national health care law passed last year, but nearly half of voters who are already insured don’t think the law will force them to change their coverage.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows that 55% at least somewhat favor repeal of the national health care law, including 44% who Strongly Favor it. Thirty-eight percent (38%) at least somewhat oppose repeal, including 27% who are Strongly Opposed. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Support for repeal of the law is up one point from last week. Most voters have favored repeal of the measure every week but one since it was passed by Congress 17 months ago. During that time, weekly support for repeal has ranged from 47% to 63%, although it's generally been in the mid-50s for months.

Among those who already have insurance, just 38% believe the law is likely to force them to change coverage, including 18% who say it's Very Likely. But 49% don’t think the new law means they’ll have to change insurance coverage, with 23% who say it’s Not At All Likely. Another 13% are not sure.

Since June of last year, belief that the health care law is likely to force a change in health insurance has ranged from 34% to 51%.

The national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 19-20, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Just 32% of voters now think the health care law will be good for the country, only a point above the all-time low. Fifty-two percent (52%) believe the law will be bad for the country, while three percent (3%) feel it will have no impact. Belief that the law will be good for the country has ranged from 31% to 41% since its passage.

Eighty-one percent (81%) of voters currently rate their own health insurance coverage as good or excellent. Only five percent (5%) see that coverage as poor. This is consistent with findings over the past several years.

An overwhelming majority of Tea Party voters (96%) favor repeal of the law, compared to 42% of non-Tea Party voters.

Most Mainstream voters (67%) favor the health care law’s repeal, but just 27% of the Political Class agree.

Eighty-five percent (85%) of voters believe that everyone must be required to prove they are legally allowed to be in the United States before receiving any local, state or federal government services.

While voters feel stronger than they have in a year that politics in Washington will grow more partisan in the near future, they say Democrats in Congress are governing in a more bipartisan fashion than Republicans are.

But Republicans bounced back to a seven-point lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, August 14.

A plurality of voters continues to say they’re politically conservative when it comes to fiscal issues, but voters are more evenly divided on their social views.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ ... h_care_law