A record high number of Americans want to repeal ObamaCare straight out, not fix it. Photo: AP)
Though Democrats argue returning to the status quo is unacceptable, an all-time high number of registered voters say they want to repeal ObamaCare, not tweak or fix it. A new FOX Poll found that 58 percent of Americans want to repeal ObamaCare outright, while just 38 percent say the law should stay.
The new Fox Poll comes just one day after ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who was caught on video bragging that Democrats used a “lack of transparency” and “the stupidity of the American voter” to pass the bill, was grilled by members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Americans say by a 49 – 43 percent margin that Gruber’s comments prove the Obama administration intentionally lied to get the law passed, including a significant 26 percent of Democrats, 54 percent of independents and 72 percent of Republicans.
Few American voters feel their family is better off under ObamaCare, and a record number would repeal the law if they could.
In addition, if comments by one of the health care law’s authors about lying to “stupid” Americans are true, over half of voters think President Obama or other administration officials are responsible for that deception.
Under tough questioning by North Carolina Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry, Gruber admitted that kicking working Americans off of their health insurance plans “was part of the calculation” when designing ObamaCare.
“I concluded there would be churn in the market the entire time,” Gruber said. “We did model that some individuals would lose their existing plans and move to new forms of coverage… I don’t know the national estimate for how many people lost health insurance, so I don’t know how it compares to what I projected.”
Gruber further admitted that this was no secret during policy discussions at the White House.
“I was present for discussion of those numbers and interpretation of what they meant in terms of how the law would affect individuals,” Gruber said
The poll found a plurality of Americans think President Obama (37 percent) or members of his administration (16 percent) are responsible for perpetuating the lie, while 32 percent blame Congress.
The bottom line, however, is that most Americans simply don’t believe the law will improve healthcare, positively impact their family, or worse, have been negatively impacted by the law already.
While just 14 percent say their family is better off under the president’s signature law, twice as many people — 28 percent — say their family is worse off. Much of these results can be explained based on partisanship and ideology, as 47 percent of Republicans say their family is worse off juxtaposed to only 9 percent of Democrats who say the same. Further, 62 percent of those who identify with the Tea Party movement say their family is worse off under ObamaCare.
However, insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act, widely known as ObamaCare, just took effect on January 1, 2014. According to a PPD study, roughly 145 million Americans were previously covered under plans that do not meet the Essential Health Benefit Standards mandated by the law, but thanks to Obama’s unilateral and repeated delaying of the politically painful parts of the law, only a small number of Americans have learned the hard way, thus far. When these Americans are affected, they will feel the increased cost burden, likely resulting in even more negative perceptions.
A recent study conducted by healthcare analysts at Morgan Stanley found health insurance premiums increased at the highest rate ever measured by the firm. The survey of 148 brokers concluded health insurance premiums increase under ObamaCare because of ObamaCare, blatantly stating “increases are largely due to changes under the ACA.” On average, premiums have increased nationwide anywhere from 4 – 12 percent depending on counting methods, but deductibles have skyrocketed to over 300 percent across the nation, on average.
House Republicans in November filed the long-expected ObamaCare lawsuit against the Obama administration over unilaterally delaying aspects to the bill with liberal law Professor Jonathan Turley as lead counsel. But, as important as some Republicans may feel that legal challenge may be, it is almost certainly not the most pressing legal challenge in the works.
A powerful U.S. appeals court invalidated ObamaCare subsidies for health insurance obtained through the federally-run HealthCare.gov on July 22. The ruling was a major blow to the president’s signature health care law, and all but ensured the constitutionality of the law would once again be decided in the U.S. Supreme Court.
On November 7, the highest court in the land decided they would hear the case, which many predict will be a far more challenging case for the government than the individual mandate proved to be.
Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, who was previously caught double counting dental plans and engaging in various dubious counting methods aimed to inflate the success of the program, refused to disclose whether the administration is telling consumers that the federal subsidies may not remain available, leaving unknowing Americans with a hefty cost increase they hadn’t anticipated.
Because the administration allegedly broke the law, which specifically prohibits subsidies on the federal exchange, many who purchased plans on the federal exchange will be in for a rude awakening if the Supreme Court upholds a lower court’s decision. Mr. Gruber, once again, was caught on tape admitting the law specifically prohibits such subsidies, yet changed his mind when the administration took it upon themselves to offer them out in an effort to entrench the law further.
Meanwhile, speaking at the National Press Club regarding their 2014 midterm defeat, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) admitted Democrats should never have passed ObamaCare. He said Democrats did not have a mandate to pass the deeply unpopular law and made a mistake when they put the economy on the back-burner to ram it through.
“Unfortunately, Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them,” Schumer said. “We took their mandate and put all our focus on the wrong problem — health care reform.”
Americans agree.
Now, just 38 percent of voters approve of the job Obama is doing handling health care, which is only two points above the record low 36 percent approval measurement in the FOX Poll last November. But by a 60 – 37 percent margin, voters say they “wish he [Obama] would have spent more time on the economy during his first years in office instead of reforming healthcare.”
In fact, the economy remains the top priority earning 38 percent, with handling ISIS at 21 percent. Health care, still, hovers around its historical third place mark at 12 percent, but immigration at 10 percent and race relations at 9 percent are close behind.
According to the PPD average of ObamaCare approval polls, the law remains deeply unpopular with just 38.5 percent of Americans supporting, while 55 percent opposing the law.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,043 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from December 7-9, 2014. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
