58% Expect Health Care Costs to Go Up Under Obamacare

Obamacare remains unpopular with voters who still expect it to drive up costs and hurt the quality of health care.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 40% of Likely U.S. Voters have at least a somewhat favorable opinion of the new national health care law, while 56% view it unfavorably. This includes 15% with a Very Favorable opinion and nearly three times as many (43%) with a Very Unfavorable one. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

These views are unchanged from a week ago. Unfavorables hit an all-time high of 58% in mid-November. Favorables fell to a record low of 36% in that same survey.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) continue to believe that the cost of health care will go up under the new law. This, too, is unchanged from recent surveys and down only slightly from a recent high of 61% in late November. Only 18% think the law will drive health care costs down, while 16% expect costs to stay about the same.

Twenty-one percent (21%) of voters think the quality of health care will get better under the new law. But a plurality (47%) disagrees and believes health care quality will get worse. That’s down from a high of 51% in November and December. Twenty-four percent (24%) predict quality will stay about the same.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) think it’s at least somewhat likely that the health care law will cost more than official estimates project, with 57% who say it is Very Likely. That’s unchanged from last month and remains the highest overall level of skepticism in more than a year of regular surveying. Just 14% say the law is not very or Not At All Likely to cost more than projected.

Also essentially unchanged are the 51% who believe the new law is likely to increase the deficit. Seventeen percent (17%) think it will reduce the deficit instead, while just as many (17%) say it will have no impact. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on March 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.

One-in-three U.S. voters now says his or her health insurance coverage has changed as a result of Obamacare, and the same number say the new national health care law had a negative personal impact on them.

Democrats remain strongly supportive of the health care law, while Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party continue just as strongly to dislike it.

Eighty-five percent (85%) of GOP voters and 68% of unaffiliateds expect health care costs to go up under the law, a view shared by just 30% of Democrats. But only slightly more (34%) of the voters in the president’s party think the law will make health care costs go down as supporters promised prior to its passage by Congress in March 2010.

Similarly, while 80% of Republicans and 57% of unaffiliated voters expect health care quality to go down as a result of the law, only 14% of Democrats agree. But just 38% of Democrats expect the law to improve the quality of health care in America, while 35% think quality will remain about the same.

Seventy-nine percent (79%) of the Political Class have a favorable opinion of the health care law, while 68% of Mainstream voters view it unfavorably.

Voters remain almost evenly divided over the new government requirement that every American must have health insurance, while support for a single-payer government-run health care system is at its highest level in over a year.

Voters continue to strongly support having a variety of choices when it comes to purchasing health insurance.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of voters who have health insurance rate their coverage as good or excellent.

But 81% of Americans believe the cost of prescription drugs is too high.

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

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