Majority of Americans Support Changes to Health-Care Law

A recent Gallup poll found that more than half of Americans want Congress to repeal or scale back Obamacare.

December 10, 2013

WASHINGTON – The percentage of Americans who prefer that Congress scale back or entirely repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, has changed little, according to a recent Gallup poll.

Fifty-two percent favor scaling back (20%) or repealing (32%) the law, similar to the 50% from a mid-October poll. At least half of Americans have said they would repeal or scale back the law each time Gallup has asked this question since January 2011.

The latest results are from a Gallup poll conducted Dec. 3-4, after a tumultuous two months for the Obama administration's health-care website, where technical issues kept potential buyers from purchasing health insurance through the website.

Gallup found that Americans are about as likely to say they would like Congress to "expand" the health-care law or "keep it as it is" as they were in October, although a minority hold these views. Twenty percent want Congress to expand the law, up from 14% in October, while 17% want the law to be kept as is, down from 24%.

The time since the federal health exchange website officially launched on Oct. 1 has been a period of turmoil for Obamacare, and although the government announced Dec. 1 that most technical issues have been fixed, Americans so far are no less likely to say Congress should repeal the law or scale it back, Gallup found.

Even though the Obama administration continues to make fixes to the site and the Dec. 23 deadline approaches to enroll for coverage that starts on Jan. 1, Gallup found that Americans' views about congressional action on the health-care law have remained steady, and it is unclear whether they will budge in the months to come.

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