Rich, White, Healthy People Are More Likely To Oppose Obamacare

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

If you’re rich, white, healthy and already insured, you probably don’t like Obamacare, according to a new analysis by the Urban Institute.

Those were the groups with some of the highest opposition to the health care reform law, the poll found, with a plurality or majority expressing an unfavorable view. More than half of whites (51 percent) opposed the law; 45 percent of those who said they were already insured did as well.

The trend followed with 44 percent of those who make above 400 percent of the federal poverty level, i.e. ineligible for tax help under the law, opposing it; 44 percent of those who reported they were in very good or excellent health said the same.

Many of those who stand to benefit most from the law, meanwhile, hadn’t yet formed opinions: A plurality of the uninsured (38 percent) and those eligible for Medicaid under the law’s expansion (37 percent) said they had no opinion on Obamacare.

Views also seemed to correlate with whether a person’s state had actively participated in implementing the law: Opposition dropped from 45 percent in states that didn’t expand Medicaid to 37 percent in states that did, and from 44 percent in states that didn’t build their own insurance website to 34 percent in states that did.

The analysis, pulled from a September 2013 poll, reviewed the survey results of 8,000 U.S. adults, ages 18 to 64. A full methodology is available here.

Photo via Shutterstock / bikeriderlondon

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: