Poll: Most say time to end effort to repeal Obama health law

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Message to President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans: It’s time to make the Obama health care law more effective. Stop trying to scuttle it.

That’s the resounding word from a national poll released Friday by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

The survey was taken after last month’s Senate derailment of the GOP drive to supplant much of President Barack Obama’s statute with a diminished federal role in health care.

Around 4 in 5 want the Trump administration to take actions that help Obama’s law function properly, rather than trying to undermine it. Trump has suggested steps such as halting subsidies to insurers who reduce out-of-pocket health costs for millions of consumers.

His administration has discussed other moves such as curbing outreach programs that persuade people to buy coverage and not enforcing the tax penalty the statute imposes on those who remain uninsured.

Just 3 in 10 want Trump and Republicans to continue their drive to repeal and replace the statute. Most prefer that they instead move to shore up the law’s marketplaces, which are seeing rising premiums and in some areas few insurers willing to sell policies.

Ominously for the GOP, 6 in 10 say Trump and congressional Republicans are responsible for any upcoming health care problems since they control government.

That could be a bad sign for Republicans as they prepare to defend their House and Senate majorities in the 2018 elections.

And by nearly 2-to-1, most say it’s good that the Senate rejected the GOP repeal-and-replace bill last month.

With the Kaiser survey consistently showing clear overall public support for retaining Obama’s law, the numbers help explain why some centrist Republicans who rely on moderate voters’ support opposed repeal or backed it only after winning some concessions.

Strikingly, while large majorities of Democrats and independents back efforts to sustain the statute, even Republicans and Trump supporters lean toward saying the administration should try making the law work, not take steps to hinder it.