It's a given if you're a Republican: everyone hates Obamacare. And it's actually true—if you are a Republican. In the rest of the political world, a big majority of people are okay with it. In fact, according to the latest
Bloomberg poll, 63 percent think the law should either just be left entirely alone (12 percent) or allowed to work to see what small changes should be made (51 percent—a majority). Who wants it repealed? The same roughly 35 percent who've been screeching for repeal for
the past three years.
But there's more to keep in mind about that 35 percent: Obamacare doesn't really affect them.
Only a third of the country supports full repeal, and, like the Republican coalition itself, it is a very old third—comprised of the only people in the country with almost no stake in the law's core costs and benefits.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, whose tracking poll is a touchstone for measuring public sentiment about Obamacare, the law is under water—barely. Forty-one percent of respondents hold favorable views of the ACA, while 43 percent hold unfavorable views. But if you break it out by age cohort, you find that that two percent margin is entirely attributable to people who have aged out of the program.
Among 18- to 64-year-olds—the people who pay for the law, or are eligible for the law's benefits, or might become eligible for the law’s benefits at some point in the future—Obamacare is breakeven. Forty-two percent favorable, versus 42 percent unfavorable. Among those whose opinions we should generally ignore on this issue—old people—it's a bloodbath. Only 36 percent view the law favorably, while 46 percent view it unfavorably.
That's likely most attributed to the big Medicare lie that dominated two election cycles—the $716 billion cuts in Medicare Republicans hammered on and lied about incessantly (the same $716 billion Paul Ryan
included in his budgets to make his numbers work). What's in it for old people if Obamacare really does get repealed? Higher
prescription drug prices and a Medicare program that's back on
shaky financial footing.
When you hear "Obamacare is unpopular" repeated again and again by the traditional media without question, remember this. The law is unpopular with elected Republicans, and with people who don't have nearly as much to lose if it's gone.