The Kaiser Family Foundation recently released some interesting findings about public opinion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While 44 percent of Americans view the law unfavorably, about 50 percent want the ACA to be kept as is or expanded. Additionally, fully 44 percent of respondents answered that their unfavorable opinion of the law was “more about [their] general feelings about the direction of the country and what’s going on in Washington right now.” In comparison, 25 percent of respondents dislike the law because of what they know about it.
So, some of the public’s dislike of the ACA may not be about the law at all, but instead about an overriding frustration with the current political environment. Some of it may not be about the law going too far, but instead about it not going far enough. These results show that the public’s dislike of the Affordable Care Act may not be as straightforward as it first seems.