The Keiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll is out, and it has good news for both Obamacare and the potential demise of Trumpcare. But …
Currently, Americans are not buying into the fallacy that somehow Trumpcare (Affordable Health Care Act (AHCA)) is an improvement over Obamacare. According to the KFF poll,
The Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 48 percent of the public thought the GOP plan would decrease the number of people who have health insurance. Another 30 percent expected the insured rate would stay the same, and 18 percent thought the number of covered people would increase. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)
Additionally, 48% believe health insurance prices would rise while only 23% believe it would drop. While Republicans were more optimistic about the prospects of Trumpcare, 20% were not buying it. And three-fourths of all respondents want Medicaid to continue funding Planned Parenthood.
Republicans, not surprisingly, were more optimistic than Democrats that the GOP plan would have positive effects. But it was not unanimous: 1 in 5 thought their party’s plan would lead to fewer people with insurance. A fifth of Republicans also said they expected insurance costs to rise under the plan.
Provisions of the GOP plan that would change women’s health care have strong opposition, including its ban on federal funds for Planned Parenthood to help it provide birth control and other non-abortion care to lower-income people. Three-quarters of the public thought Medicaid should continue to fund Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services. The law already prohibits Medicaid spending for abortion, but the pollsters found that only a third of the public is aware of that.
Obamacare is no longer under water as a plurality of Americans now support it.
For all the suspicion about the GOP approach, the public remained ambivalent about the ACA, with 49 supportive and 44 percent opposed. The public was also split about whether the ACA should be repealed.
So most Americans are not fooled. But we must be careful that a well-orchestrated misinformation campaign does not get legs to trick Americans into once again vote against their interests.
Donald Trump and Paul Ryan are playing with the lives of every poor and middle-class American. As MSNBC’s Ali Velshi explained, the free market simply does not work for health insurance, period. Chuck Todd recently pointed out that the new plan decimates coverage for all but mostly to the Trump voter.
Learn why Single-Payer/Medicare-For-All is our future.
Call your Senators and Congressional Representatives every day and let them know you do not want the Affordable Care Act repealed. If you do not know how to get in touch with them, click here.
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