Rasmussen: Health Care Law Has Already Lost in Court of Public Opinion

Katie Pavlich | June 28, 2012 11:36 AM

The Supreme Court upheld ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act today as Constitutional, but that doesn't mean it's popular. From Rasmussen:

A week after President Obama’s health care law was passed, 54% of voters nationwide wanted to see the law repealed. Now, as the Supreme Court is set to issue a ruling on the law’s constitutionality, the numbers are unchanged: 54% want to see the law repealed.

Rasmussen also made this point in an op-ed back in March.

Even if the law survives the Supreme Court and the next election, the clock will be ticking. Recent estimates suggest that the law would cause 11 million people to lose their employer-provided insurance and be forced onto a government-backed insurance plan. That's a problem because 77 percent of those who now have insurance rate their current coverage as good or excellent. Only 3 percent rate their coverage as poor. For most of the 11 million forced to change their insurance coverage then, it will be received as bad news and create a pool of vocally unhappy voters.

Additionally, the cost estimates for funding the program are likely to keep going up. Eighty-one percent of voters expect it to cost more than projected, and recent Congressional Budget Office estimates indicate voters are probably right. But it's not the narrow specifics and cost estimates that guarantee the ultimate demise of the president's health care plan. It's the fact that the law runs contrary to basic American values and perceptions.

This, then, is the third hurdle the law faces: Individual Americans recognize that they have more power as consumers than they do as voters. Their choices in a free market give them more control over the economic world than choosing one politician or another.

Seventy-six percent think they should have the right to choose between expensive insurance plans with low deductibles and low-cost plans with higher deductibles. A similar majority believes everyone should be allowed to choose between expensive plans that cover just about every imaginable medical procedure and lower-cost plans that cover a smaller number of procedures. All such choices would be banned under the current health care law.