The House will vote on the American Health Care Act on Thursday, and amidst the drama about whether the Republicans can whip up enough votes to pass the new measure, a new poll indicates that public support for the measure is fading fast. A new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted over the weekend shows that the approval rating for the ACHA has dipped to 41 percent, down from 46 percent at lat check. Disapproval, meanwhile, has grown from 35 percent to 38 percent, while 22 percent remain undecided.
As you’d expect, there’s a sharp divide by party affiliation. Republicans support the new bill at a 62 percent rate, while Democratic opposition is nearly as high at 57 percent. A plurality (43 percent) believe Republicans are moving too fast, and only 18 percent think there’s a need for urgency.
This is actually one of the more optimistic polls around the country, which likely stems from the fact that POLITICO/Morning Consult doesn’t identify the effort as Republican-led—they simply call it “a proposed health care bill in Congress called the American Health Care Act.” A Harvard-Harris poll found that 51 percent of respondents see the ACHA as moving the country backward, while a compilation from 538 shows favorability ratings of 34 percent (Fox News), 24 percent (PPP), 12 percent (CBS News), and 24 percent (Huff. Post). This, as 538 notes, is considerably worse than Obamacare’s unpopularity when it passed through Congress in 2010.
All told, the average approval rating (minus the Morning Consult poll) averages out to 27 percent, while the disapproval rating has climbed to 49 percent.