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Even in Trump’s base, his path forward on health care is awfully unpopular

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website April 25, 2017:

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump’s proposal on health care was nebulously perfect. Obamacare — that is, the Affordable Care Act — would be gone, he told his cheering supporters, replaced by something cheaper, better and more expansive that wouldn’t be burdened by the hated word “Obama.”

When it came time to deliver on that promise, very early in his administration, the bill that was offered up was somewhat distant from that target. The American Health Care Act would actually see fewer people covered by a decade from now, independent analysis indicated, and costs would drop largely because those with the most expensive plans would stop getting coverage. Trump halfheartedly championed the bill even though it wasn’t his creation. When it collapsed, the exhalation from the White House was nearly audible.

The problem, though, is that the failure appears to have made any future significant changes trickier. New polling from The Washington Post and our partners at ABC News as well as a survey from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal makes clear that Trump’s base still wants Obamacare to be tossed out — but that it mostly opposes the most viable path toward doing so.

It’s still the case that three-quarters of the people who voted for him and three-quarters of Republicans overall want to see Obamacare repealed and replaced. The majority of Americans disagree, mind you, thanks to large majorities of Democrats and independents who think that it’s preferable to improve the existing law. Sixty-one percent of Americans overall hold that view.

Data and Research Manager: