Americans Do Not Like President Trump's Approach To Health Care: Poll

WASHINGTON, DC — President Trump is pushing once again for lawmakers to pass a Republican alternative to Obamacare, but new polling shows that the new GOP plan is not what the American people — including a majority of Republicans — want. In a survey from the Washington Post and ABC News, 61 percent of Americans say they want to keep Obamacare and make improvements, while only 37 percent want to see "repeal and replace." Even more troubling for the GOP, Americans largely dislike the most recent proposals under discussion.

Seventy percent of respondents said that health insurers should not be allowed to charge people more for having pre-existing health conditions — and they think this should be the rule in all states. This view is in opposition to current proposals being reviewed at the White House and in Congress that would give states the option of letting insurers charge different prices to the sick. Even 54 percent of Republicans disagree with this idea. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Most Americans — 61 percent — likewise disagreed with another part of the plan also under discussion to allow states to opt out of "essential benefits" requirements, which are rules that require insurers to cover basic forms of coverage like maternity care, mental health care and emergency services, according to the poll. On this front Republicans do support letting states decide, but by a relatively narrow margin of 51 percent to 46 percent.

Trumpcare Lives? GOP Plans Another Try To Kill Obamacare

A previous poll found that the American Health Care Act — the Republicans' Obamacare overhaul plan that the Congressional Budget Office predicted would add an extra 24 million people to the ranks of the uninsured by 2026 — was supported by a measly 17 percent of Americans. Republicans decided not to even bring this bill to a House vote when it became clear they lacked the votes necessary to get it through.

But Trump does have another idea — a backup, if you will, assuming all attempts at reform fail.

"The best thing we can do, politically speaking, is let Obamacare explode," he told the press after his first attempt to pass the AHCA went down in flames.

Yet according to the new polling, this would be a disaster for Trump, "politically speaking."

The survey found that 79 percent of people said Trump should try to make Obamacare work as well as possible in lieu of an alternative, while only 13 percent said he should make the current law fail. Which suggests that, at least for now, the president may be stuck trying to make the plan he campaigned against succeed.

Read the full results of the poll.

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