Poll Findings Indicate Public’s Continued Mixed Feelings About Health Overhaul

The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog: Kaiser Poll: Mixed Feelings On Health Law But Opposition To Defunding
Americans are still pretty polarized in their views of the health care overhaul law passed last year, including whether to repeal it. But a majority oppose the notion of defunding the law's provisions in order to neuter it, a poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health finds (Hobson, 1/25).

McClatchy: Americans Deeply Split On Altering Health Care Law
American attitudes toward changes in health care laws are "all over the map," a Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health survey reported Tuesday. While 28 percent want the 2010 health insurance law expanded, 19 percent said leave it alone, 23 percent backed repealing it and replacing with Republican ideas and 20 percent said repeal it, but don't replace it. Views fell largely along partisan lines, with 77 percent of Republicans supporting some sort of repeal, while 51 percent of Democrats said they want the law expanded (Lightman, 1/25).

Reuters: Americans Oppose Yanking Healthcare Law Funds
Most Americans do not want Congress to block funding for various new health care measures even as the nation remains split on the sweeping overhaul passed last year, a poll published on Tuesday found. More than half of those surveyed - 62 percent - said they did not approve of lawmakers cutting off funds needed to implement changes, which range from new rules for health insurance companies to tax credits for small businesses and state grants (Heavey, 1/25).

Kaiser Health News: Public Doesn't Support Cuts To Health Care Programs
As Washington lawmakers face renewed pressure to remedy the country's trillion-dollar budget deficit, fractured public opinion on where to make critical cuts - in health care and other major entitlement programs - could complicate political strategies in the run up to the 2014 presidential election, according to researchers from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health (Miles, 1/25).

Kansas Health Institute: Divide Over Health Reform Likely To Continue
The lines that divide American public opinion on the health reform law have hardened and probably won't change much until the 2012 presidential election, according to analysis of a survey released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health (McLean, 1/25).

Modern Healthcare: Reform Law Grows More Unpopular: Survey
The percentage of Americans who have an unfavorable view of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act rose to 50% in January - up from 41% in December - as opposition to the law increased among independents, according to a joint survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health (Zigmond, 1/25).

(Note: Kaiser Health News is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.)