Republican voters still want their elected officials to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, despite GOP leaders indicating that they want to move on, a new poll shows.
Politico and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health conducted the survey, which asked American voters to grade 10 top priorities for Congress. Of the Republican respondents:
- 53 percent said that repealing and replacing Obamacare should be an "extremely important priority."
- 26 percent said it should be a "very important priority."
- 16 percent said it should not be a priority.
Despite strong support from the GOP, most voters don't rate repealing Obamacare as "extremely important" for Congress.
- 26 percent of adults rated repeal and replace as "extremely important."
- 20 percent said it's a "very important priority."
- 10 percent said it's "only somewhat important."
- 40 percent said it "should not be a priority."
Among Democrats, the majority, 60 percent, said repeal and replace "should not be a priority," with less than 40 percent saying it's in any way a priority.
According to Robert Blendon, a Harvard healthcare policy and public opinion expert who created the poll with Politico, voters have responded to President Donald Trump's repeated criticism of GOP leaders for failing to repeal and replace Obamacare.
"The president's concerns and criticisms of walking away from another effort to replace the ACA have really stuck among Republican [voters]," he said. "The takeaway is that [Congress] should make one more try at changing the ACA rather than the proposed tax reforms."
The poll also found that voters are looking for Congress to lower prescription drug prices:
- 40 percent said it's "extremely important."
- 31 percent said it's "very important."
This proved the top priority for both Democrats and independents, above tax reform, investigating Russian election interference, and raising the minimum wage.
SSRS, "an independent research company" conducted the poll on behalf of Politico and Harvard, contacting 1,016 American adults by phone from Aug. 30 to Sept. 3, with a margin of error of 5.3 percentage points.