A recent poll shows that Americans who voted for President Donald Trump want the Affordable Care Act (ACA) repealed immediately.
According to the POLITICO-Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health poll results released in January, 85 percent of Trump voters said repealing Obamacare was extremely or very important, and that it should be a top priority in the first 100 days of the Trump administration.
Trump voters even prioritized repealing Obamacare over immigration concerns, with 78 percent citing preventing illegal immigration, and 55 percent favoring ending or modifying NAFTA, as priorities.
Among the general public, however, just 44 percent cited repealing Obamacare as a top priority.
“Consumers want what they have always wanted, which is affordable access to quality health care,” Tevi Troy, president at the American Health Policy Institute, told Patient Daily. “The ACA increased costs for health care. It gave subsidies to some and therefore did not solve the problem. The hope is that the Republican plan would be able to reduce costs overall and thereby incentivize people to purchase health care on their own rather than having it subsidized and mandated.”
Troy, who served in the George W. Bush administration, said the poll results suggest that the people who voted for Trump and for the Republican Congress want to see the ACA repealed and something better put in its place.
“Given the continued interest from people who put President Trump in the White House, it remains likely that they will continue to press forward with this endeavor,” he said.
When respondents were asked whether they support or oppose the repeal without tying it to the priorities for the first 100 days, 75 percent of Trump voters favored repeal compared with 47 percent of the overall public. Of those who want the law replaced, 57 percent said they would like an alternative, compared with less than one-third (31 percent) of the general population.
When it comes to the general public, 46 percent oppose repealing Obamacare. Overall, results from both Trump supporters and the general public show that 15 percent want Obama’s signature health care law repealed and not replaced.
Republican lawmakers have been contemplating what the best course of action is in addressing the health care law. Some aspects of Obamacare have been quite popular among consumers, and repealing the law may jeopardize certain provisions that many consumers favor.
If Congress does follow through with Trump’s wishes and repeals and replaces Obamacare, many wonder what that would mean for consumers.
Troy said that all depends on how the process works out.
“If there is an orderly transition from the current Obamacare system to a patient-centered system that lowers costs and gives people more choices, patients will be great,” Troy said. “If, however, Congress cannot come up with an alternative or a solution, then patients will either be stuck in the current system, which is problematic, or in limbo, which also has its problems. The best result for all is for Congress to work in a bipartisan way to improve the system for everyone.”
