Politics & Government

Californians Support Health Care Act but Concern About Economic Impact

About two-thirds of voters believe workers will be laid off or forced into part-time status so companies will not have to pay for their health insurance.

Despite overall support for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, voters in California are concerned about how the legislation will affect the economy and their own health care access, according to the results of a USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences/Los Angeles Times Poll.

According to the poll, 50 percent of California voters favor the legislation, and 33 percent strongly favor it.

Voters were surveyed from October 30 until November 5, after the rollout of the Covered California health benefit exchange. Forty-eight percent of those surveyed said the state should continue its implementation of the law, while 35 percent said they wanted implementation stopped and the law repealed, according to a news release.

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More than one in three voters said they had personally experienced losing health insurance coverage since the passage of the health care law, either directly or through a family member of close friend, according to the news release. Fifty-seven percent of voters said insurance premiums had increased for themselves or someone they know, and another 24 percent said they or someone they know had experienced reduced wages due to the health care law, according to the news release.

Sixty-nine percent of voters said they believed workers will be laid off or forced to go part time so that companies do not have to pay for their health insurance; and 25 percent said it was unlikely, according to the news release.

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Overall, 42 percent of California voters oppose the legislation, including 30 percent who oppose it strongly for going too far and 6 percent who oppose it strongly for not going far enough, according to the news release.

"While there have been concerns about the cost of health care before Obamacare, Californians are generally satisfied with both the cost and quality of their health care. The problem from a political perspective is this is called the Affordable Care Act, and voters say it's not coming across as affordable," said David Kanevsky, Research Director for Republican polling firm American Viewpoint, which conducted the poll with Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner on behalf of USC and the Los Angeles Times. "If people think you broke the system, it's very hard to make the electoral argument to let you fix the system they think you broke."

"Politically the terms of the debate have become more complicated than whether health care reform is a good idea or a bad idea. The conversation has now shifted to whether we should implement and fix the law, or repeal and replace it, and the repeal and replace position is misaligned with most Californians," said Drew Lieberman, vice president of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner."There is a recognition that the overall system needs to be rectified, and voters still support Obamacare as a way to fix that."

Ninety percent of voters are satisfied with the quality and access of their personal health care, while 8 percent are not satisfied; and 71 percent said they are satisfied with how much they paid for health care, while 24 said they are disssatisfied, according to the news release.

Sixty-five percent said it was likely they would not be able to afford mandated health care, while 29 percent disagreed; and 63 percent agreed with the idea that the only affordable health insurance would be very basic coverage, while 26 percent disagreed, according to the news release.

"Even Californians who are very strongly supportive of health care reform are very measured in their expectations of what its impact is going to be," said Dan Schnur, director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll and director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. "If deep blue California is this lukewarm about the Affordable Care Act, that suggests very heavy sweater weather at the national level."

Other findings, according to the news release:

- About 28 percent of voters said they knew someone who had gotten health insurance since the passage of the legislation after being previously uninsured;

- Thirty percent of Latino voters said they knew someone who had been able to acquire health insurance, including 10 percent who said they were personally able to get health insurance after being uninsured;

- Forty-three percent said the law would have a positive impact, while 42 percent said it will have a negative impact;

- Thirty-four percent said the law would boost the economy, while 46 percent said it would hurt it;

- Fifty-one percent of white voters thought the law would be harmful, while 28 percent thought it would help;

- Thirty-eight percent of Latino voters thought the law would be harmful to the economy, while 41 percent said it would help;

- Fifty-four percent of white voters said the law would hurt small businesses, while 23 percent said it would help.

- Forty-seven percent of voters felt that the the effect of the Act on small businesses would be negative, while 27 percent said it would be positive.

- Sixty-five percent agreed that the law will lead to fewer uninsured people, while 29 percent disagreed;

- Forty-five percent said the costs of caring for the uninsured would likely go down, while 46 percent of voters said the law would not lower those costs;

- Fifty-seven percent of voters believed there would be cuts made to Medicare, while 29 percent disagreed;

- Thirty-seven percent of Californians said the Act would have no effect on their personal health care, while 29 percent said it would have a positive effect and 24 percent said they believed the effect would be harmful;

- Thirty-four percent of voters surveyed receive health insurance through their employer, 16 percent receive Medicare, 14 percent are insured through a family member, 10 percent bought their own policies and 10 percent are uninsured.

The full sample of 1,503 registered voters has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.

City News Service



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