Obamacare, For First Time, Has Support of Majority Of Americans: Gallup

WASHINGTON, DC — Obamacare is now supported by majority of Americans, according to a new poll from Gallup released Tuesday.

"This is the first time a majority of Americans have approved of the healthcare law, also known as Obamacare, since Gallup first asked about it in this format in November 2012," Gallup's Jim Norman wrote in a report on the poll's results. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Fifty-five percent of Americans approve of the law, while just 41 percent disapprove, according to the survey of more than 1,000 adults conducted of cell phones and landlines. Five months ago, only 42 percent approved and 53 percent disapproved.

Visit Gallup to see a breakdown of the results.

What happened in the meantime? Republicans tried to get rid of the law.

While the GOP pledged for seven years to repeal Obamacare, when they finally had majorities in the House and Senate, along with the presidency, they failed in an embarrassing first attempt to roll back the law. Their alternative, the American Health Care Act, wasn't even supported by a majority of Republican voters, garnering only 17 percent approval nationwide according to one poll. Fractures among House Republicans meant that the bill didn't even make it to a scheduled vote.

And as the Congressional Budget Office and others began explaining exactly what repealing Obamacare would do, including potentially leaving an additional 24 million people without health insurance, it seems some Americans reevaluated their view of the law.

Still, polling on Obamacare has always been more complex than the top-line numbers suggest. According to this same poll, only 26 percent of voters want to keep Obamacare as it is, while 30 percent want it repealed. Forty percent want to keep the law but make "significant changes," a response that encompasses a wide swath of views.

This reveals more nuance to the public's perspective than simple approval/disapproval.

Many critics of the law from the left feel that it didn't go far enough. They would like to change it in a more liberal direction, by adding a public option, increasing subsidies or further expanding Medicaid. Some want to ditch the market-based approach to insurance altogether and adopt a single-payer system.

Other opponents of the law dislike certain provisions, such as the individual mandate for people to buy insurance, while liking certain parts of Obamacare, such as the ban on insurers discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions. However, health care economists argue that unless we want a disastrous "death spiral" in the marketplaces, we can't protect people with pre-existing conditions if we don't have something like the individuals mandate.

So what does the new majority support for Obamacare mean going forward?

"Politically, it creates a major obstacle to Trump and Congress' ongoing efforts to change or replace the law," Norman writes. "In future elections, it could turn the GOP's opposition to the law from an asset into a liability."

He continues: "More importantly in the daily lives of Americans, it might mean that the most sweeping changes to the nation's healthcare system in decades will remain the law of the land for the foreseeable future."

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