Health Reform Law: Public Support Up

01 July 2010 |permalink | email article

The health-care overhaul, bitterly attacked by Republicans and the radical right as socialism, gained increasing popularity from May to June, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll.

A Washington Post report suggests that the Obama administration’s promotion of the legislation may be paying off or the public may be warming to the law as early provisions take effect.

In June 48 percent of the public had a favorable view of the law while 41 percent had an unfavorable opinion. In May the split was 41 percent favorable to 44 percent unfavorable.

Since President Obama signed the law, both Democrats and Republicans have been vying for advantage in the fall Congressional elections. The administration has adroitly been calling attention to potentially crowd-pleasing elements of the legislation as they are phased in.   

These include allowing parents to keep young adult children on their insurances policies until age 26, and a provision that is helping some Medicare beneficiaries narrow a gap in their prescription drug coverage. The full impact of the health-care legislation will not be felt until 2014.

What strikes me about the talk-show hysteria being generated by the Party of No and the Tea Partiers is their failure so far to call for the repeal of Social Security and Medicare, but the new fiscal year has just arrived. 

Comment, July 5

“American policy is drifting toward a review, scheduled for December, and Obama is trapped – not by his own generals but by the war. It takes great politic al courage to face such a situation honestly, but if in a year’s time the war looks the way it does now, or worse, Obama will have to force the public to deal with a likely reality: Americans leaving, however slowly; Afghanistan slipping into ethic civil war. With more Afghan deaths; Pakistan backing the Pashtun side; Al Qaeda seizing the chance to expand its safe haven. These consequences would require a dramatically different U.S. strategy, and a wise Administration would unify itself around the need to think one through before next summer.” – George Packer is a New Yorker staff writer.

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