Slightly more than half of Californians remain in favor of the Affordable Care Act, with support near record highs, a statewide survey reports on the eve of the opening of the Covered California health insurance marketplace.
About a quarter of state residents say they’ll be better off under Obamacare, while a slightly smaller amount say they expect to be doing worse, according to the Public Policy Institute of California survey team. Roughly half said the Affordable Care Act won’t affect them.
Republicans (61 percent) were the only group in which a majority said they would be worse off.
A slim majority of Californians (53% percent) and half of likely voters (50 percent) supported the changes to the health care landscape.
PPIC surveyors said Californians’ support for Obamacare remains at historic highs in 2013, but not by much. “Support among all adults has been around 50 percent since this question was first asked in September 2009.” The peak approval rate was 55 percent in January.
California has registered stronger support for the sweeping health insurance reform than across the nation, the survey team noted. The state insurance “exchange,” Covered California, is seen as a national leader in implementing Obamacare. (A similar Obamacare phone survey of last summer found: “Almost twice as many Californians have greater trust in state government than the federal government to implement the law.”)
In the latest poll, 36 percent of those without health insurance said they expected to be better off, while 26 percent of those with insurance felt they’d be worse off. Support was highest among younger respondents.
With a government shutdown looming in response to Republican efforts to derail Obamacare, 63 percent of the Californians surveyed disapproved of the GOP maneuvering. That percentage was identical to polling in January, the policy group reported.
Approval and disapproval of President Obama’s handling of healthcare reform was split evenly, with Obama losing ground since the beginning of the year.
To no one’s surprise, opinions about Obamacare broke down dramatically when party affiliations were factored in: “79 percent of Republicans are opposed and 75 percent of Democrats are in favor.”
Strongest support for the Affordable Care Act in California came from those on Medicare/Medi-Cal, with a 63 percent approval rating. But older respondents (55+) were the least likely of age groups to say they’d be better off under Obamacare, while the most optimism was found among younger residents (18-34).
The Obamacare phone survey of 1,703 California adult residents was conducted Sept. 10–17. PPIC describes itself as “an independent, objective, nonpartisan” group funded by the James Irvine Foundation.
Read full results of the Obamacare survey in California (PDF).
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