Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos. 2/3-6. Registered voters. MoE 3.1% (No trend lines)
What would you like to see the new Congress do with the health care reform bill that was passed last year: keep the bill but make it stronger, keep the bill exactly in its current form, repeal certain parts of the bill, or repeal the bill entirely?
Stronger No Change Repeal parts Repeal all
All 38 6 20 33
Dem 66 8 19 5
GOP 7 2 23 64
Ind 37 8 20 32
Lib 75 7 7 9
Mod 49 7 24 17
Con 11 4 21 62
Tea Party 12 3 9 73
Non TP 47 7 21 23
When it comes to repeal, it's either the tea party vs. the rest of America or conservative Republicans vs. the rest of America -- take your pick. Either way, this poll shows that while overwhelming majorities of liberals and moderates like at least some parts of health reform; only conservatives, teahadists, and Republicans want to nuke the whole thing and start again.
Half of moderates and three-quarters want to keep reform in place but strengthen it. Another quarter of moderates want to repeal parts of the bill, but don't want to scrap the whole thing. Meanwhile, three in four teahadists want to junk it all together.
None of this is particularly surprising, but I guess I'm at a loss to understand just who in the hell the 15 percent of teahadists are who want to either keep the health care bill as it is or want to strengthen it? And it's surprising that nearly 40 percent of conservatives and one-third of Republicans don't want to nuke the bill completely.
Perhaps those numbers are why Republicans aren't willing to have a knock-down drag-out fight over defunding health care reform?