A strong majority of Americans wants to repeal Obamacare, according to a poll released today by Rasmussen Reports.
The survey of likely voters finds that 54 percent at least somewhat favor repeal of the health care law while 35 percent are at least somewhat opposed. And the passion is with the opponents. Some 41 percent strongly favor appeal compared to 28 percent strongly oppose it.
Gosh, the promised White House campaign to sell and explain the law has never materialized. I guess that’s because the more Obama talked about it during the runup to passage, the less popular it became. Or so it seemed. At the very least, he didn’t help.
The Rasmussen poll is something of an outlier, but not inconsistent with other surveys. Polls in recent months by POLITICO, Hearst, and Bloomberg have shown a 6-10 percent margin for those who favor repeal.
What this means, with polling so awful a year after the legislation was passed, is that Obamacare remains a political weakness for Obama, and not one he is likely to solve before Election Day.
There may indeed be consequences to passing sweeping yet unpopular legislation. Give Obama credit, though, for not cooking up policy in the political shop on this one. This one was ideological.
52 thoughts on “Americans Really Want Obamacare Repealed”
A reflection of what I now think of as carefully orchestrated chaos–so the country will throw up its hands and say, OK, universal care, whatEVER, just fix this?
Those polled must have separate reasons to vote for or against the Obamacare; those who have no health insurance are pro, those who buy their own or have it provided by employers are con. Senior citizens on Medicare are against it because it cuts funds now used to prop up the program they’d paid into for years. Self-employed or small businesses are in favor of it because it relieves their burden of self-insuring or the expense of providing the benefit for their employees.
The other group of cons are the thousand or so groups who received waivers by way of political favors repaid while claiming hardships.
If the courts allow this law to stand, every employer will turn over employee healthcare to the Feds and give them the singlepayer they yearned for, plus give the incentive to fold Medicare into Obamacare.
The law is a legal and constitutional quicksand trap.
I am one of those that has never had healthcare and I will be 60 in a few months.
I know that ObamaCare is wrong for America, and wrong for me. The Gov should not be allowed to make anyone buy anything..
Vote Conservative 2012
I’m guessing that the people who wanted a “stronger” law (e.g. single payer or a public option) aren’t telling the pollsters they want the law repealed. Consider that even Daily Kos (a strong advocate of single payer and later a public option), is opposing efforts to repeal the law and has published commentary supporting the constitutionality of the individual mandate (even though overturning it might actually strengthen the legal case for single payer). Thus, I’d guess that most of those who support repeal want to get rid of it entirely.
Being one who has been thrown into the public health care system due to a series of unfortunate events, I can attest to how overwhelmed it has already become.
Currently, the local “public” hospital where I live (a city of over 800,000 people) operates eleven community clinics as a way to keep the hospital from being overwhelmed with patients. However, due to the flood of new patients (legal citizens and illegal invaders) the hospital has stopped accepting new patients at any of the clinics. This is now pushing more and more people to the actual hospital, mostly into the ER, causing a huge back log and delay in medical services.
Yesterday, I had to go to the ER due to a bad reaction to contrast from a MRI. I had called the clinic several times last week trying to get an answer from the neurologist as to what to do, but to no avail. I spent nearly nine hours in the ER just to be given a shot to help reverse the reaction, and told to see the neuro. Unfortunately that appointment isn’t until mid-July, and there is no openings.
I was talking to the nurses and doctor yesterday, and they advised that they have seen a fairly substantial uptick in new patients over the past year. They wouldn’t come right out and say what the cause was, but I have a hunch it is due to an increase in illegals (half the ER was non-English speaking patients), or job/insurance loss (as is my situation).
It is my belief that this administration is taking a page right out of the Cloward–Piven play book, and just waiting to totally overwhelm the medical system so as to force every hospital to become a “public” hospital. This way they can say, “See, we need a single payer/universal health care system because the “public” hospitals cannot handle the burden of treating those in need.”
To really solve the health care “crisis” America has we need tort reform (something the lawyers in DC do NOT want), provide only true emergency medical treatment to illegals, allow cross state purchase of medical insurance to bring about competition, and allow individuals to develop local, regional and cross state co-ops to share/reduce the costs of medical care.
Not too sure on the illegals being the cause–fewer are coming to AZ…not more. We have insurance–and we have to go to the ER sometimes–the doctors send you there on Sat or Sun or hols–or after hours–they tell you to go… The docs are sure not going to rush into their office to see you. When my right eye bled on a Sat–resulting 4 ops and much later, blindness in that eye–I called my doctor after the ER on Sat and he said, “What do you want me to do about it, come in Mon.” The ophthal would not come to the ER–said to tell me my eye was bleeding…yeah, could still see–could see the blood in there like a lava lamp. I got it. Eye bleeding. Check. I didn’t even go to medical school!
Star,
I live in a northern mid-west city, and “officially” we have about 35k to 50k Hispanics. My experience (personally and professionally) puts that at anywhere from 75-100k. I say that due to the large areas of the city that have become exclusively Latino.
While there may not be many coming across in AZ, NM, TX or CA I am beginning to think that a larger segment of those already in the country are moving north to avoid aggressive enforcement on the part of the states (lord knows the Feds ain’t gonna do it!). The border states could see a change in demographics as various locales attempt to take back their own state’s rights.
It will be something interesting to watch over the next few years and where the demographics shift.
As for the doctors, there is something amiss in the way patients are treated. I finally got a return call today from my neuro’s office. Their comment was, “Well, since you went to the ER, just come in for your next appointment.” We have the best doctors in the world, and yet some of them have no clue as to what patient care (ie concern) is all about.
Oh, boy, is that the truth. I have more medical war stories than I can tell.
Obamacare (scare) must be defunded. We must stop it now. I believe as STAR said, the WH just wants us to throw up our hands and forget trying to repeal it, but it must be done.
Vote Conservative 2012
Because Rasmussen is such a credible source….
And who gave the most accurate polling in 2008 & 2010 elections?
Yes that’s right Rasmussen.
Keep your head in the clouds.
Actually Joe, Rasmussen is a very credible source if one is willing to be objective about the subject of the poll. Of course you don’t like their message so you shoot the messager.
Much more credible than ANYTHING that has EVER come out of the scumbag-in-chief’s mouth.
It’s probably not accurate to say that the left’s “rescue” of American health care was purely ideological. Deluded types like Obama and Pelosi actually did think they were going to reap political rewards from it as well — after all, it was promoted as “something for nothing” for a huge number of people. That’s always worked in the past, right? They thought it would work again, and that they were “doing well (politically) by doing ‘good.'” Remember that huge grin on Pelosi’s face when it passed?
Ooops!
The single payer system just seems like a stupid trick. Instead of you paying 800 dollars a month to buy your own health insurance, you give me 900 dollars a month in taxes and I buy you the same 800 dollar insurance policy. Except, instead of immediate care, I create huge wait lists and ration the care the other countries do. Since you can look at countries like Canada, England, France etc. Except I will tell you that won’t happen here. I won’t give a reason for why it won’t, I will just say it won’t. You have absolutely every thing to lose and I have everything to gain so its really a good deal.
It may be true that most people want to repeal healthcare reform, but such polls do not mean that it should be done. Consider whether you know anyone who has been truly, severely ill for a long time, and (s)he was satisfied with his or her care.
I have yet to find anyone. It’s easy to say that your healthcare is great when you have no need for it. Then, when you fall ill, you’ll find out that the insurers don’t really care about you all that much and take advantage of you when you are least able to fight them. Having taken a dietary supplement that caused a severe mixed state for six months, I can say that the worst part of being ill is the complete hopelessness of the situation. You don’t know if you’ll ever get better, nobody understands what’s happening to you or cares about you, and you’re expected to be able to answer questions about insurance when you can barely complete coherent sentences.
Now that health reform has passed, I have to wait only 2.5 years until I can work on my dream – to start a business. Before the law passed, I would never have been able to start a business because health insurance would never have been offered to someone with a preexisting condition, and so I worked for others for years because I had no other choice. Finally, I’ll be able to share in the American dream like everyone else.
I understand that people have to pay more for this reform, because it costs money to cover everyone. But healthcare is a basic human right, just as people deserve not to be left out in the street to die of starvation. I don’t care about buying a smaller high-definition TV so that someone can receive a lifesaving treatment because it simply is the right thing to do.
I can totally relate, Steve–will try to send positive thoughts, although as I tell the docs, I am not plucky. As for the insurers–I spent five weeks trying to get an eye doc referral. I am supposed to go four times a yr bec in the course of my surgeries, they cut the nerve to the surface of my eye and I could have an infection I would not feel. No one in any doc’s or ins office seems to “grok” this concept.
You may wait now and battle insurers but you will not believe what happens when Obamacare kicks in. There will be lots of things that will not be covered because they are “not cost effective” or you will wait for months to see a doc. I know, I lived in Canada. The U.S. even with its problems is the best health care system in the world.
The only way Obamacare can control cost from Washington is with brute force – don’t allow something costly and reimburse at such a low rate docs give no time to you. You will NOT like it!
This idea of “rationing” is misguided. What people who complain about “rationing” are really saying is that they deserve better care than everyone else. They’re entitled to receive every last treatment for their cancer even if it only gets them one more day to live, while others are not allowed to be treated for cancer at all.
That’s the way it currently works. Making the healthcare system equal not only entails providing better treatment to those who can’t afford it, but also denying unreasonable treatment to people who currently receive it. Yes, reform does mean that I, who makes more than I ever dreamed I would, could be denied care. But I’m no better than everyone else and providing basic treatment for everyone necessitates cutting back on the most over-the-top expenses that the rich currently receive.
Equality is the central issue, and people who make a lot of money often feel that they are entitled to something better than people who don’t. While that may be true in the case of televisions, as I described above, it is morally right to provide the same level of care to everyone.
I also want to point out that the US is the best healthcare system in the world only for those who can afford the care. The 40,000 people who die every year because they don’t have insurance do not believe it is the best system in the world.
If you averaged the experiences of everyone in Britain and compared their experiences to Americans’, I bet that the British would score higher overall, while America’s average would be lower with a very high variance between the best care and the worst care.
Obamacare isn’t about health care, it is about control. Once the government controls your health care, they control every aspect of your life. They will control what you eat, when you exercise, even whether you live or die. That pie in the sky dream about starting your own business once you are able to get your “free” health care is just an illusion. The disabled will be the first to go before the IPAB board. Read up on Ezekiel Emanuel’s complete lives formula. There is no room for the disabled, premature infants, or the elderly under his formula. Ezekiel is currently working for the WH.
Steve, I invite you to talk with some of our most recent veterans and listen to their experience with VA medical care before you assume that you will be better off in 2.5 years. Further, how can you state that healthcare is a basic human right? What about the millions in N Korea…is it a basic human right to them, or is it just the “special” ones in the USA? It may be the ” right” and compassionate thing to do, but that does not make it a human right.
It is a right, even to the people in North Korea. But unfortunately, the United States cannot, and should not, solve all the problems of the world. Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan are all examples of this country’s misguided attempts to control the world – and it’s questionable whether anything has been gained in those places except ill will.
If those unnecessary wars had not been started, then there would have been enough money to provide healthcare to everyone even at rates lower than they are today.
I want Obamacare repealed because of what it has done to me. Not FOR me; TO me.
BEFORE Obamacare, that is up until December 31, 2010, the family deductible for my company-paid medical coverage was $300…and it had been $300 for years.
AFTER Obamacare, that is on January 1, 2011, the family deductible for my company-paid medical coverage went up to $2,800. You can do the math. And because my company is self-insured, it was a take it or leave it situation.
Obama LIED when he said that if I liked the plan I currently had, I’d be able to keep it. He was WRONG. Instead, my company canceled the plan I liked and in its place substituted the aforementioned high-deductible plan.
Obama LIED when he said his plan would “bend the cost curve downward.” What he really meant was: “Bend over and face downward.”
Thanks, Obama!
rasmussen polls are consistently 10 rto 20% more negative to obamacare and obama himself than mainstream pollsters. you embarrass yourself quoting his garbage. he is dishonest.
Rasmussen is about the only pollster I trust. He was pretty much spot on about the 2008 and 2010 elections. He actually called Obama as the winner in the 2008 election. How I wish he was wrong on that one.
actually Rasmussen has been shown to run “narrative setting” polls while elections are not close, so as to provide the right with ammunition that their ideas are popular and democrats are more unpopular than they really are. Then, closer to election season, Rasmussen appears to adjust their polling, bringing results closer in line with the final election result and appear to be a good pollster. its a clever game.
Rasmussen has been the most accurate political pollster for years. What you call mainstream are the “slanters”. Check who called the 08 races best. Or do facts bother you?
You are factually incorrect, have you compared the polling in 2008 and 2010 elections?
If you had you’d discover that Rasmussen was the most accurate polling for the elections.
Just because you disagree with the MAJORITY doesn’t mean the result is inaccurate.
What Mr. Koffler conveniently leaves out is that of the 50% of the US population that wants Obamacare overturned, 20% want it overturned because it didn’t go far enough.
Poll after poll has consistently shown 40% support Obamacare, 40% oppose thinking it went too far & 10% oppose because it didn’t go far enough (with 10% having no opinion). The 50% who support it or think it didn’t go far enough outweigh the 40% who oppose it thinking it went too far.
Furthermore, who cares what the poll numbers show. For crying out loud, 40% of this country believes the Earth is 6,000 years old so it’s not as if we’re dealing with an educated, rational populace.
The facts are as follows. The US pays twice per person in health care as any other country and we are 37th in overall health care. Single-payer systems are much more efficient.
Conservatives prefer to base their opinions on conspiracy theories & religious fundamentalism. Liberals prefer logic, reason & scientific evidence.
Your definition of liberals and conservatives is hilarous! Sorry Brent, you can’t rewrite history no matter how hard you try. Socialism has never succeeded in the history of the world. Ever. The current crop of liberals think they are smarter and better than all the other guys and this time they will reach their utopia.
Liberals base everything on feelings and emotions. They put their heart into every stupid, idiotic feel good idea their leaders sell them. They are very loyal to those leaders as well. No matter what they do, it doesn’t affect what they are working for…that idyllic place where there are no more poor people and everyone is happy. The problem is that liberals want to force us conservatives to go along with them. We don’t want to go there.
Conservatives want to be left alone to live their lives and provide for their families. They are careful with their money. If they can’t afford to buy a house, they wait until they can. They want to be able to practice their religion if they so desire. Islam is not as accepting. They want to be able to raise their children with ethics and American values. We send our children to school to learn math, spelling, grammar, and history. They come home talking about global warming and sexual relationships, and singing catchy little propaganda tunes.
We could all get along just fine if you liberals and your leaders would get your foot off our neck and let us get back to work. This country is dying because of liberals and their Marxist leaders.
Brent, the US is actually #1 in terms of “responsiveness to patient needs.” Our life expectancy and overall “ranking” are lower because we’re obese, we shoot each other, and we get into more car crashes than the rest of the world. If single-payer were so great, we’d be part of the USSR right now. They had single-payer everything, from health care, to food, to cars.
Actually, only Canada, North Korea, Cuba, and the UK have true “single payer” systems in the modern world. Most of Europe has something akin to Obamacare (but with much higher taxes on the lower and middle classes than we have here and more government subsidies).
What about the Commonwealth Fund study where we come in last in “deaths attributable to healthcare”? That would normalize for your causes of death, because they only studied deaths where the intervention was clear but not taken for some reason. More people died here for lack of care. Face it. We do NOT have the “best care in the world”.
The source of the money is irrelevant. They pay far less as a percentage of GDP, which means that it’s just plain cheaper. We may not pay their taxes, but the amount by which our wages our depressed in order for our employers to provide those benefits is more than the amount they’re taxed.
Also, you’re classification of North Korea, Cuba, the UK, and Canada all as single payer shows that you don’t know what “single payer” means. Single payer means just government insurance (like Medicare), not government hospitals.
That bit about 37th in health care is ridiculous, even to the people who were surveyed in the process of the WHO ranking. “Philip Musgrove, the editor-in-chief of the WHO report that accompanied the rankings, calls the figures that resulted from this step ‘so many made-up numbers,’ and the result a ‘nonsense ranking.’ Dr. Musgrove, an economist who is now deputy editor of the journal Health Affairs, says he was hired to edit the report’s text but didn’t fully understand the methodology until after the report was released. After he left the WHO, he wrote an article in 2003 for the medical journal Lancet criticizing the rankings as ‘meaningless.’ ”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125608054324397621.html
Oman ranks in the top 10 because its people use health care less per capita than almost any other country, but the reason for that is that they die young. Hardly an indicator of a health care system that is working.
Yep, voters want repeal of Obamacare which is the cause of the doubling of insurance premium from 2000 to 2007, the dropping of employer plans and the higher copays and deductibles and higher employee contributions during the Bush years.
What they want is the Republican promise of rolling back health insurance premium and benefits to where they were in 2000, but the expansion of the government drug benefit without tax hikes.
And the balanced budget of 2000 and low unemployment.
The Republicans have done a great job of heaping all the things that have gone wrong since 2000 on Obama.
Does anyone think a Republican repeal of Obamacare will result in health insurers cutting CEO bonuses and slashing premiums and boosting benefits because that is the free lunch Republicans are promising the voters if Republicans just let those CEOs take from their customers only as much profit as their customers want?
Bull malarky. Most health insurance companies are most non-profit. Yes, we’ve seen our policy costs increase over the years but that is because of government intrusion in the way of regulations. The federal government is the monster under the bed, not Mr. Bush. After Obamacare passed my health insurance premium jumped about 25%. Why? Because of all the great freebies Obamacare promised the liberals. My higher premium pays for someone else to keep their loser 26-year-old “child” on their insurance.
Not only Obama care but Obama and his Dem minions in Congress should be repealed. I cannot think of any policy that this inept CEO-CIC has gotten his flacks to pass in Congress that has benefited any American other than the union thugs, welfare entitlement groups. The Dow has been dissed. Free enterprise is dissed. Sovereignty for our border states has been dissed. We have no domestic energy policy that uses American energy sources and makes real products. So economic insanity has been the mode of this Socialist in Chief.
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If you can find a pollster who has been more accurate in the elections of the past 8 years, feel free to name the organization.
Since you won’t be able to do that, however, we know that you’re just a Leftie shill, right? Go on – admit it – you have no use for truth or facts, you’re a democrat.
You think? One of the key things that’s stiffling the economy is Obamacare. Companies are reluctant to hire new employees with this boondoggle hanging over their heads and lurking in the shadows. Like a weed, it’s time to work on repealing Obamacare before it takes root and become just one more womb-to-tomb entitlement that we’re stuck with.
You try so hard to be Drudge.
It must be tough to be a nobody with a website who has to scream for attention (Obama is going golfing, OH MY!)
The Rasmussen poll means nothing, like most of his.
Just skewed to the right, believe me, I have been polled twice by Rasmussen.
“Do you hate Obama, or just dislike him”, is about the typical poll question.
You are going nowhere with your blog.
Nice career choice and you never were a “White House Correspondent” except in your dreams.
Really? Keith is going nowhere? You know what I find? When Drudge readers come over, my job as a wit and gadfly is ever so much harder–after someone calls the president a douche bag, what am I to add? So incisive, so witty.
Why is anyone surprised that Americans want Obamacare repealed? Only in the Democratic Congress, pre-2010, was there a plurality of support, and only then after sufficient bribery had been committed. This isn’t news.
No such grant of government control over the individual shall ever be repealed.
Just modified in a manner that grants greater control to state.
Suck it up buttercup. and welcome to the world.
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You are absolutely correct. The American people want Obamacare repealed.
We do not like the way it has been forced on us. And the evil, shady back-door deals that it took to get the votes for passage. Totally corrupt. Shameful. Every liberal that voted for Obamacare should be thrown out of office. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I not only want it repealed but I want every congressman who voted for a bill that they did not read to be thrown out of office. This is the kind of crap that is responsible for the finandial situation our country is in.
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TOTAL BULL!!! Those polls are BULL! I just checked 1 out and the questoins are ALL negative and dont have anything to do with “Obamacare.” Besides the only ppl who do vote in those ubsurd pole are all republican. Meaning 1 side of the story for something completely false. Like most of the mainstream rupublican news shows. If u want real facts. Make a true poll thats unbaise and show it to both parties.
Not a bad number, in the 60’s 93% of americans voted and said they did not want LBJ’s medicare bill, ask those same people today, wounder what the numbers would be? Without Obama care what would the 50 million uninsured do?
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