The Republican healthcare bill is the least popular major bill in decades

pulse

June 21, 2017 3:54 PM

The American Health Care Act is less popular than the bank bail outs, Obamacare, the failed Clinton healthcare plan, and the Dodd-Frank regulations.

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The American Health Care Act is shaping up to be the least popular legislation in decades, as the Senate prepares to release its own version of the healthcare legislation.

A poll published Wednesday from Morning Consult and Politico is another in a slew of recent polling showing that the Republican healthcare bill as passed by the House is deeply unpopular. The latest survey displayed 30% approval among respondents and 50% disapproval.

That represented a collapse from the 42% approval and 37% disapproval levels the bill had when Morning Consult/Politico ran a poll on April 30, before the bill passed.

While the bill is predictably unpopular with Democrats, independents and Republicans are even turning against it. In April, 67% of Republicans said they supported the AHCA, with just 16% opposing it. Now, just 56% say they favor it, while 30% say they're opposed. Disapproval among independents has also increased in that timeframe from 36% to 53%.

The change may not be a surprise, given that President Donald Trump also swiped at the bill recently. He called it "mean" during a meeting with senators last week, even though he celebrated the AHCA's passage during a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.

An analysis from The New York Times on recent AHCA polling showed that there is not a single state in which the bill has even a plurality of support.

Based on that analysis, the highest approval rating for the bill is in Oklahoma at 38%. But even there, 45% of people in the state are opposed to it. In 25 states, more than 50% of the population disapproves of the House GOP healthcare legislation, according to the Times.

A chart from Chris Warsaw, an assistant professor for political science at MIT, showed that the AHCA is the least popular major piece of legislation going back to 1990.

Based on an aggregate of polling from the Roper Center public opinion data, Warsaw said the AHCA is less popular than Obamacare, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (the bank bailout), the Dodd-Frank regulations, President George W. Bush's tax cuts, and even the failed healthcare plan from President Bill Clinton.

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