The general voting public has been pretty darned tired of Republicans' talk of repealing the Affordable Care Act for a pretty long time. That has not changed in the August Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, which finds that a whopping 78 percent of voters want the Trump administration to make Obamacare work and for Congress to just let it go.
[T]he majority of the public (60 percent) say it is a “good thing” that the Senate did not pass the bill that would have repealed and replaced the ACA. Since then, President Trump has suggested Congress not take on other issues, like tax reform, until it passes a replacement plan for the ACA, but six in ten Americans (62 percent) disagree with this approach, while one-third (34 percent) agree with it. […]
A majority of the public (57 percent) want to see Republicans in Congress work with Democrats to make improvements to the 2010 health care law, while smaller shares say they want to see Republicans in Congress continue working on their own plan to repeal and replace the ACA (21 percent) or move on from health care to work on other priorities (21 percent). […]
A majority of the public disapprove of stopping outreach efforts for the ACA marketplaces so fewer people sign up for insurance (80 percent) and disapprove of the Trump administration no longer enforcing the individual mandate (65 percent). […]
This month’s survey continues to find that more of the public holds a favorable view of the ACA than an unfavorable one (52 percent vs. 39 percent). This marks an overall increase in favorability of nine percentage points since the 2016 presidential election as well as an increase of favorability among Democrats, independents, and Republicans.
Outside of diehard Trump supporters, his tactics of sabotaging the law are hugely unpopular. Eighty percent want the administration to continue outreach efforts to inform people about signing up and 65 percent want it to keep enforcing the individual mandate. And it's the least popular part of the law! The public is seriously at odds with the Congress and the White House and are just "relieved" (51 percent) or "happy" (47 percent) that the Senate couldn't function on Trumpcare. And everyone who is glad it failed is giving themselves a big and deserved pat on the back: 40 percent say it was grassroots effort that killed the bill, while 25 precent credit Republican members who opposed it.
But here's the critical takeaway looking ahead to 2018—that huge majority that wants Trump to make the law work. Even 33 percent of Trump voters want that to happen! Add to that the 60 percent who say that Trump and Republicans are responsible for what happens to the law moving forward. Trump's "let it implode" attitude is vastly, hugely, bigly unpopular and he's going to get the blame for every Obamacare failure from here on out. That blame will trickle down to Republicans refusing to fight him.
