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46% Oppose Health Care Law’s Individual Insurance Mandate

Support for the national health care law’s requirement that every American obtain health insurance is down slightly from recent months, as is support for a single-payer health care system.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 40% of Likely U.S. Voters think the federal government should require every American to buy or obtain health insurance. Forty-six percent (46%) oppose this so-called individual mandate. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Support for the individual mandate is down from 44% last month and 42% in January. Still, support for the mandate remains higher than it was all of last year. In December, 58% opposed the requirement.

Thirty-six percent (36%) of voters now support a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides health insurance coverage for everyone. That’s down from 40% in February but is in line with surveys through most of last year. Forty-nine percent (49%) oppose a single-payer system, the highest level of opposition measured since November. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

Just 52% of voters are now aware whether their state has created an exchange for the sale of health insurance as part of the health care law. That’s down from 59% in February and 57% in January. Prior to this survey, awareness had been steadily growing from a low of 32% in January of last year.

Unchanged from the past two months are the 12% of voters who say they or a member of their immediate family have bought health insurance through one of these exchanges.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on March 28-29, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Voters still don’t like the new national health care law but are more supportive of government-mandated health insurance standards as long as consumers still can choose the kind of plan they want based on costs and coverage.

Sixty percent (60%) of Democrats support the individual insurance mandate, while 66% of Republicans and 57% of voters not affiliated with either party oppose it.

Voters under 40 by a narrow 44% to 39% margin favor a single-payer health care system. Most voters over 40 oppose such a system.

Men are more strongly opposed to a single-payer health care system than women are.

Voters who are not married show more support for a single-payer system than married voters do.

Ten percent (10%) of whites say they or an immediate family member have signed up for insurance through a health care exchange, compared to 15% of blacks and 16% of other minority voters.

Eighty-one percent (81%) of all voters are following news reports on the implementation of the health care law, including 42% who are following Very Closely.

Fifty-three percent (53%) expect the health care system to get worse under Obamacare, a finding that has ranged from 48% to 61% in regular surveys since late 2012.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on March 28-29, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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