Public opinion appears to be moving in favor of President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Act, PPACA. A new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that a majority of the public opposes repealing the entire law, which includes popular provisions such as allowing children to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26 and prohibiting insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions. The Kaiser survey found that 54 percent of respondents believe the law should be expanded or kept as is, while 37 percent want it repealed completely.
“In terms of next steps for the ACA, just over a third of Americans would like to see it expanded (35 percent, the highest point in Kaiser tracking), two in ten (19 percent) want to leave it in its current form, and similar shares would like to replace it with a Republican alternative (18 percent) or repeal it outright (19 percent).”
There are some interesting results in the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll, among them:
- 63 percent of Americans support a new federal requirement that plans include no-cost birth control
- Americans that think their family will be worse off under health reform dropped to 25 percent
- 70 percent of Americans say “Medicare should continue as it is today, with the government guaranteeing seniors health insurance and making sure that everyone gets the same defined set of benefits,
Interestingly, in regards to the budget and cost controls, the poll found that “despite the fact that many policy experts are deeply focused on the need to rein in the nation’s entitlement spending, the survey confirms the conventional wisdom that convincing a majority of the public to make any change to Medicare is going to be difficult”
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll-Feb-2012