74% Rate Their Health Insurance Good or Excellent

Voters are a bit more critical of the U.S. health care system four months into Obamacare, but most still have high praise for their health insurance coverage and the care they personally receive.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 31% of Likely U.S. Voters now rate the nation’s health care system as good or excellent, while just as many (32%) describe it as poor. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Prior to these findings, positive views of the health care system have ranged from 32% to 43% in regular surveys since November 2012, while the system has earned poor marks from 19% to 31% in the same period.

For the second month in a row, 31% expect the health care system to get better under the new law, the highest level of optimism to date. But over half (52%) expect the health care system to get worse. That’s up four points from 48% in January, the first time that finding had fallen under 50% in a year. Eleven percent (11%) think the system will stay about the same.

But 77% of voters continue to rate the health care they personally receive as good or excellent, although those are the lowest positives since last August. Only four percent (4%) describe the care they receive as poor, consistent with regular surveying for well over a year.

Ninety percent (90%) say they have health insurance, and 74% rate that coverage as good or excellent. Positive assessments have run from the low 70s to the low 80s in regular surveys since June 2010. Just four percent (4%) view their health insurance coverage as poor, essentially unchanged during that same time period.

Thirty-two percent (32%) now say their insurance coverage has changed because of the new law.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 8-9, 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.

Sixty percent (60%) of voters believe most of the current problems with the health care law are unlikely to be fixed within the next year.

Republicans are more critical of the U.S. health care system than Democrats and unaffiliated voters are. Fifty-three percent (53%) of Democrats think the system will get better under the new health care law, while 81% of GOP voters and 62% of unaffiliateds predict that it will get worse.

Women are more optimistic than men about the law’s impact on the health care system. Voters of all ages tend to think the law will make the system worse, but those under 40 are far less pessimistic than their elders.

Most voters in virtually all demographic categories rate the health care they receive as good or excellent.

But while 81% of voters with health insurance describe the care they receive as good or excellent, just 41% of those without health insurance agree.

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the Political Class believe the health care system will get better under Obamacare. Just as many Mainstream voters (68%) expect the system to get worse under the new law.

Most voters still view the health care law unfavorably and continue to believe it will raise the cost of health care in this country.

In several Southern states, the health care law is even more unpopular than it is nationally, and early looks at Senate races in Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina suggest that senators who supported the law may be in trouble.

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

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