Democrats continue to believe Americans will embrace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as more of them learn what is in the new law.
However, the numbers are not proving the Democrats correct because they show the number who disliked the health care bill presented in 1994 is similar to the number who do not like the health care law today.
Rasmussen Reports has just conducted a new poll that explains voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on nine out of ten key issues.
Rasmussen states:
— Following the passage of the health care bill, 53 percent now say they trust Republicans on the issue of health care. Thirty-seven percent place their trust in Democrats. A month earlier, the two parties were essentially even on the health care issue.
— The results are consistent with the finding that 54% of voters want the health care bill repealed. Rasmussen Reports is tracking support for repeal on a weekly basis. Still, health care ranks just No. 5 among voters on the list of 10 important issues. The economy remains the top issue.
— On the economy, Republicans are trusted by 49 percent while Democrats are preferred by 37 percent. That’s a big improvement for the GOP following a five-point advantage last month. More voters who make less than $20,000 annually trust Democrats on this issue, but voters who earn more favor Republicans.
If that does not concern the Democrats about a potential repeat of 1994, then perhaps they should be reminded of the Gallup report (as cited in a 1994 study by American Enterprise Institute’s Karlyn H. Bowman) that showed similar numbers on how people felt about the failure of Hillarycare.:
“In early October 1994, the Gallup Organization asked Americans how they felt about the fact that Congress had not passed a health care bill. Fifty-three percent told the pollsters they were ‘relieved,’ while 38 percent said that they were ‘angry.’ The results were not substantially different from those Gallup obtained when the organization first posed a similar question in August. Why would a population that seemed so supportive of health care reform a year earlier have come to this conclusion? And why would an issue that generated so much commentary as a potentially decisive election issue have virtually “vanished from the mid term campaign?”
CBS’s Political Hotsheet recently reported most Americans continue to oppose the health care overhaul with 53 percent disapproving and 39 percent approving.
—President Obama has continued to tour the country to stump for his new set of reforms. Last week, he went to Portland, Maine, where he told people it will take more than a week for the benefits of reform to become apparent.
—The Rasmussen poll, conducted March 29 through April 1, also found that so far the president’s efforts to build up support for the bill appear to be ineffective.
—Fifty-three percent of Americans say they disapprove of the new reforms, including 32 percent who say they disapprove strongly. In the days before the bill passed the House, 37 percent said they approved and 48 percent disapproved.
If these numbers do not produce a definite deja vu feeling among Democrats who think voters will like the new health care law, then then they are denying their own political history and could very well repeat it come this November.
