Exactly one year after Congress passed the landmark health care law, a new Gallup poll out today shows that Americans opinions’ of the law are split — and split along party lines.
By and large, Democrats said they think it was a good thing that the law — which was pushed by Democrats and signed into law by a Democratic president — was passed. Republicans, meanwhile, said largely the opposite. Moreover, public opinion has barely budged since the law was signed last year, meaning it remains a highly polarizing issue just ahead of next year’s presidential election.
In the poll, 46% of American adults said it was a good thing that Congress passed health care reform, compared to 44% who said it was a bad thing. That’s a slight drop in support from one year ago, when Gallup found that 49% of Americans liked the law, versus 40% who did not.
Just under 80% of self-identified Democrats told Gallup that they thought the health care law was a good idea, compared to only 14% who said it was not. Those numbers are almost perfectly reversed on the GOP side, where only 18% said the law was a good thing, and three-fourths said the opposite.
Independents were more closely split, with 37% giving the law a thumbs up, and 51% giving it a thumbs down.
Gallup’s findings follow a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released last week which found that 42% of adults viewed the law favorably, versus 46% who viewed it unfavorably.
The current TPM Poll Average pegs support for the law at 41.1%, with 47.3% opposed.
The Gallup poll was conducted March 18-19 among 1,038 adults nationwide. It has a margin of error of 4.0%.
