Most Voters Favor Investigation of Health Care Law’s Potential Impact

Voters are ambivalent about House Republican plans to investigate the Obama administration – unless the subject of the probe is the unpopular national health care bill.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% of Likely U.S. Voters favor having House Republicans investigate the projected costs and implications of the health care law passed by Congress earlier in the year.

Thirty-two percent (32%) oppose such an investigation. Fourteen percent (14%) more are not sure about the idea. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

Eighty-one percent (81%) of Republicans and nearly two-thirds (65%) of voters not affiliated with either major party support an investigation of the costs and implications of the health care bill. Most Democrats (56%) are opposed. 

Voters have mixed feelings about House Republican plans to investigate other aspects of the Obama administration’s performance to date.  GOP voters like the idea; Democrats don’t; unaffiliateds are almost evenly divided.

“Voters want Congress to focus on substance, not distractions,” observed Scott Rasmussen. “Congressional questioning about policy issues are okay for most voters, petty partisanship is not.”

Still, just a week after national elections that shifted control of the House to Republicans, the number of voters expecting more partisanship in Washington, D.C. has dropped to its lowest level since March of last year.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on November 7-8, 2010 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.

Who does an investigation of the health care bill appeal to more - younger voters or older ones? Whites or blacks? Higher- or lower-income voters? Become a Platinum member and find out.