Not approving of Obamacare has just become habit with the American people, apparently, because they still disapprove of it. However, they like it if you call it something else and approve of its individual provisions. And even if they still don't really like the whole idea, they overwhelmingly oppose repeal. That's been shown time and time again in the polling, and is reaffirmed by a couple of new ones done this month.
In Kentucky, Obamacare is really not popular, but people are okay with the state's version of it: kynect.
In Kentucky, a new Marist poll conducted for NBC News finds that 57 percent of registered voters have an unfavorable view of “Obamacare,” the shorthand commonly used to label the 2010 Affordable Care Act. That’s compared with only 33 percent who give it a thumbs up – hardly surprising in a state where the president’s approval rating hovers just above 30 percent. […]
A plurality – 29 percent – said they have a favorable impression of kynect, compared to 22 percent who said they view the system unfavorably. Twenty-seven percent said they hadn't heard of kynect, and an additional 21 percent said they were unsure.
“Call it something else, and the negatives drop,” said Marist pollster Lee Miringoff.
The governor who brought kynect to the state, Democrat Steve Beshear, has a huge approval rating: 63 percent. About 75 percent of the state's previously uninsured population now has health insurance, thanks to Beshear's efforts. All of this makes Sen. Mitch McConnell's task of winning re-election harder. He still wants to repeal the new law, and the majority of his party wants the same thing according to a
new CNN poll.
According to the poll, 61% want Congress to leave the Affordable Care Act alone (12%) or make some changes to the law in an attempt to make it work better (49%).
Thirty-eight percent of those questioned say the law should be repealed and replaced with a completely different system (18%) or say the measure should be repealed, with Americans going back to the system in place before the law was implemented (20%).
That 38 percent still bleating repeal is almost entirely Republican. More than 60 percent of Republicans want what they can't have, what Republican lawmakers have been promising for years now—repeal. That's not news, but it's still a problem for McConnell and others. They need to answer for their failure and keep pushing repeal to keep their primary voters happy, then run in a general election where voters are sick of their obsession.
