For the first time, the Kaiser Family Foundation
monthly tracking poll shows that more people are in favor of Obamacare than opposed. Barely, and within the margin of error, but a turn-around.
[T]he gap isn't large—43 percent see it favorably versus 42 percent unfavorably—and it falls within the survey's margin of sampling error.
Opinion still is sharply divided by party, with 70 percents of Democrats viewing the law favorably and 75 percent of Republicans viewing it unfavorably. Independents fall in the middle; 42 percent like it and 46 percent don't.
The "fix-it or repeal-it"
numbers remain consistent: 46 percent combined say either improve it (24 percent) or leave it alone (22 percent) versus 41 percent who want it scaled back (12 percent) or repealed (29 percent).
This all
reflects the recent Bloomberg poll that showed more people believing the law should be left to work rather than repealed, and that the repeal crowd is the same group of dead-enders it's been from the beginning. That crowd—the base the Republicans continue to play to—isn't going to change. But it's also not the population that is most helped by Obamacare since it skews old enough to be on Medicare.
All of this should be weighing on the minds of at least two Supreme Court justices—Chief John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy—while they consider whether or not to gut subsidies to people buying health insurance on the federal exchanges. A decision to gut the law is not going to be popular, and it's not going to help their Republican friends in Congress one bit.