Few Americans Are Cheering On The GOP's Latest Attempts To Repeal Obamacare

But most Republicans still want to see the law dismantled.
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Republican congressional leaders spent much of this week struggling to muster the votes for yet another attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act ― an effort that seemingly took a critical hit Friday when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced that he wouldn’t support the bill.

Most Americans, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds, weren’t all that excited about the prospect of repeal either. Just a third said they’d like to see the health care law ― which now nets generally positive ratings from the public ― rolled back. Meanwhile, a 52 percent majority want to see the existing law stay on the books, with 47 percent saying Congress should work to improve it, and another 6 percent saying it’s fine as it is.

By a 10-point margin, 46 percent to 36 percent, Americans say the GOP should move on to other issues, rather than continue working to pass a health care bill.

The Republican Party currently faces a trust deficit on the issue. Americans say by an 11-point margin, 38 percent to 27 percent, that they trust Democrats more than Republicans to handle health care. Among registered voters, the gap is 13 points.

The congressional GOP’s previous attempts to end Obamacare have proved to be even less popular than the idea of a repeal. HuffPost/YouGov polling in July found support for the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act at just 15 percent, with even the majority of Republicans unsure about or opposed to the bill.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll published Friday found that Americans preferred Obamacare over the Republican’s latest proposed legislation, 56 percent to 33 percent. Nearly a quarter of Republicans said they preferred the ACA.

Even if they weren’t supportive of their party’s specific attempts at legislation, however, rank-and-file Republicans still hope to see their leaders take action to dismantle the health care law.

Seventy percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said in the latest HuffPost/YouGov survey that they want the Affordable Care Act repealed. About two-thirds said congressional Republicans should keep working to pass a health care bill, up from the 58 percent who said so in late July.

A 54 percent majority believe it’s at least somewhat likely that such a repeal will still happen, although only 16 percent consider it very likely.

Use the widget below to further explore the results of the HuffPost/YouGov survey, using the menu at the top to select survey questions and the buttons at the bottom to filter the data by subgroups:

The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted Sept. 18-19 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.

HuffPost has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov’s nationally representative opinion polling. More details on the polls’ methodology are available here.

Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov’s reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.

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