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POLITICS

51% Favor Repeal of Health Care Law, 42% Think Repeal Is Likely

Most voters still want to repeal the national health care law but are now evenly divided over the likelihood of the controversial measure actually being repealed.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters are at least somewhat in favor of repeal, with 41% who Strongly Favor it. Forty-three percent (43%) are at least somewhat opposed to repeal of the law, including 31% who are Strongly Opposed. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The majority of voters have favored repeal every week but one since Congress passed the health care law in late March 2010.  Weekly tracking has found support for repeal ranging from a low of 47% to a high of 63%. Last week, 55% favored repeal.

Forty-two percent (42%) of voters now think it is at least somewhat likely that the law will be repealed, while the identical number (42%) view repeal as unlikely. These findings include 14% who say repeal is Very Likely and eight percent (8%) who believe it is Not At All Likely.

Following Republican gains in the midterm elections and judicial rulings on the constitutionality of the law, voter expectations of repeal ran as high as 52% in mid-December but fell to 40% late last month, the lowest finding since October.

The new Republican majority in the House voted to repeal the measure early this year as one of its first official acts, but the effort has ground to a halt in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Now GOP legislators are trying to stop the measure by refusing to fund certain portions of it.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 21-22, 2011 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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