Poll Finds Just One in Five Support Repeal of Obamacare Without Replacement

A new poll from a healthcare policy think tank found that just 20 percent of Americans support repealing Obamacare without having an alternative ready to enact.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this week that GOPs intend to repeal Obamacare via a budget resolution — which requires only a simple majority of senators — before the inauguration and put forward a replacement for the healthcare program, which would need to clear a 60-vote threshold, down the road.

“We’re going to move forward with the Obamacare repeal resolution first and we’ll take the second step a little bit later,” McConnell said.

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Tracking Poll released today found 47 percent of respondents wanting to leave Obamacare in place, and 28 percent supporting repeal once a replacement is in place.

Forty-six percent of Americans view Obamacare unfavorably, while 43 percent view the healthcare law favorably. And polling shifts when people are presented with arguments on each side of the debate: when told that Obamacare’s costs are out of control and consumers are being hit with larger premiums, 60 percent have favored repeal; when told that people could lose their health coverage or not be covered for pre-existing conditions without Obamacare, repeal support has dipped to 27 percent.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told Fox today that “there is going to be an orderly, careful, deliberate transition to make sure that nobody gets hurt in the process.”

“Some of the propaganda coming out of our friends across the aisle is somehow once Obamacare is repealed that there won’t have any insurance. That is not true,” Cornyn said.

“The whole structure of Obamacare was skewed because it was a partisan political exercise. There was no effort really to reach across the aisle, it was done strictly with Democratic votes,” the majority whip added. “They are still going through the grieving process following the election on November the eighth – denial, anger, and soon, I hope they will come to acceptance and realize the only way we get anything done around here is on a bipartisan, consensus-building basis.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) charged Wednesday that Republicans “can’t keep all the things that the American like about the ACA and get rid of the rest without throwing our entire healthcare system — not just those on ACA, but those on private insurance — into chaos.”

“The Republican plan would kick millions off coverage whether it be Medicare, Medicaid, or the Affordable Care Act,” he said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “It would cause premiums of many of people to skyrocket. The 75 million who are covered by private insurance—their premiums will go up too. It would harm hospitals, many of which are in rural areas. And it would put insurance companies back in charge.”

Congressional Republicans, Schumer said, are “like the dog who caught the bus — they can repeal but they have nothing to put in its place.”