Obamacare Still Unpopular After Three Years

The Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act aims to provide health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. It’s only a few months before the flagship law is fully implemented. Let’s take a look at how the law is being accepted.

According to the latest CNN survey, the majority of Americans are still opposed to the law. This confirmed last month’s Reason/Rupe poll, which found that among those who favored the law when it was passed, only 32 percent still like it today.

More importantly, among those who were against the law after it came out, only 4 percent said they have come to like it more. But the majority of Americans who did not like the law when it was passed still haven’t changed their minds.

The numbers are extremely important because they contradict the administration’s claims back in 2010 that the public would come around and support the ACA once it becomes the law of the land. Now, we see that very little has changed after almost one year since the Supreme Court upheld the healthcare law’s constitutionality. “Obamacare” is still unpopular, with more people withdrawing support than favoring it.

Another poll conducted by Quinnipiac University in March revealed that 37 percent of Americans think that the law will hurt them personally compared to 15 percent who think that it will help them. These numbers may be discouraging for those who thought the ACA would be more appealing as people learned about it. However, there is much hope that next year will be better as the new law rolls out.

Supporters of Obamacare shouldn’t lose hope. The poll results are still preliminary since people have yet to experience the full effects of the law. Mandates aimed to overhaul the healthcare system are yet to be implemented. These include preventing insurers from discriminating against individuals with pre-existing conditions, removing annual and lifetime limits, and setting up of health insurance exchanges. The new healthcare law and the health insurance plans it promotes bring a lot of promises along with it, whether or not it can deliver them remains to be seen.