Pretty Much All Of America Hates The GOP Health Care Bill, New Poll Shows
The Senate Republican health care bill is wildly unpopular, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
Just 17 percent of Americans approve of the bill, known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), according to the poll.
Overall, just 8 percent of Democrats approve of the bill.
Support among Republicans is higher, but not particularly strong: 35 percent approve of the BCRA.
Meanwhile, only 13 percent of independents approve of the bill.
The bill is projected to have a detrimental impact on health care in the United States, so it's not all that surprising it's so unpopular.
On June 26, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report that projected the bill would lead 22 million to lose health insurance by 2026, and see Medicaid -- the federal health care program for low-income individuals -- cut by $772 billion over the course of the next decade.
The bill also provides for massive tax cuts for the wealthy.
Consequently, many view this bill as taking from the poor and sick and giving to the rich.
As Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, put it to NPR, "With numbers like these, it's not surprising the Republican leadership in Congress is having a difficult time building consensus."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hoped to vote on the bill before the July 4 recess, but that ain't happening.
On Tuesday, McConnell announced the vote would be delayed so Republicans can revise the bill and get a new CBO score.
Republicans lacked the necessary support to see it passed, as five GOP senators said they wouldn't vote for it.
In short, Republicans face many obstacles in their long effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obamacare).
Americans don't necessarily want to see Obamacare go away, they just want to see it do more.
Overall, 46 percent of Americans want to see Obamacare changed so it does more, and just 25 percent want to see it repealed completely -- including more than half (53 percent) of Republicans — according to the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
At the same time, 17 percent Americans said they'd keep Obamacare as it is.
With that said, it's safe to say there is far more support for keeping or building on Obamacare than repealing and replacing it, as Republicans have hoped to do for years.
In its current form, the Senate GOP health care bill more or less keeps Obamacare but has it do much less.
According to this new poll, that's not a popular idea among Americans, as just 7 percent said they'd like to see Obamacare changed to do less.
Long story short, the GOP's present approach to health care is essentially the complete opposite of what many across the country want.
