Poll Analysis Reveals Partisan Split on Healthcare

Support for the Affordable Care Act is divided by party lines, according to a study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and published in The New England Journal of Medicine last month.

The researchers, who examined the results of 27 public opinion polls conducted by 14 organizations, predicted low voter turnout in the midterm elections and said that changes in support for universal healthcare suggest a national cultural shift.

The ACA, also known as Obamacare, was passed in 2010 and marked one of the most sweeping instances of healthcare reform since the 1965 Medicare and Medicaid bills.

The researchers reported that 56 percent of poll respondents who said they were Republicans were in favor of repealing the act, with 27 percent saying that the act should be scaled back. Meanwhile, a majority of respondents who said they were Democrats—74 percent—said they favor moving ahead with the law, with 30 percent saying the law should be preserved and 44 percent saying the law should be expanded.

The ACA has generated a particularly long-lasting public dialogue, said Robert J. Blendon, a professor at HSPH and a co-author of the study.

“What’s really unusual about this debate is that we’re four years [after] the [Affordable Care Act] became law of the country, and people are still battling about it,” Blendon said. “Often, people spend money and have big debates before we have a law, and then it’s over. Here…the law’s been passed, and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent for negative advertising to convince voters that they need to overturn this law.”

Blendon added that support for healthcare among certain groups, including the middle class, has declined in recent years.

“A surprising thing that we found was that there was a huge increase in 2002 in public support for universal coverage,” Blendon said. “However, in 2007, the majority of likely voters [were found to] no longer support the principle of universal healthcare. Something happened over the last four years, which means there’s a cultural change occurring.”

Despite this shift, William C. Hsiao, a professor at HSPH, said he was optimistic about the act’s longevity.

“Equity and fairness in health care is not of importance for a majority of Americans [today],” Hsiao said. “However, I do not expect Obamacare will be overturned or significantly scaled back because additional millions of Americans are now benefitting from it as well as many states, small firms, and low-wage businesses.”