title: Liking Health Reform But Turned Off By Toxic Politics.
abstract: Six years after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law, the number of nonelderly Americans with health insurance has expanded by twenty million, and the uninsurance rate has declined nearly 9 percentage points. Nevertheless, public opinion about the law remains deeply divided. We investigated how individuals may be experiencing and responding to health reform implementation by analyzing three waves of a panel study we conducted in 2010, 2012, and 2014. While public opinion about the ACA remains split (45.6 percent unfavorable and 36.2 percent favorable), there have been several detectable shifts. The share of respondents believing that reform had little or no impact on access to health insurance or medical care diminished by 18 percentage points from 2010 to 2014, while those considering reform to have some or a great impact increased by 19 percentage points. Among individuals who held unfavorable views toward the law in 2010, the percentage who supported repeal-while still high, at 72 percent-shrank by 9 percentage points from 2010 to 2014. We found that party affiliation and distrust in government were influential factors in explaining the continuing divide over the law. The ACA has delivered discernible benefits, and some Americans are increasingly recognizing that it is improving access to health insurance and medical care.
authors.affiliation: Lawrence R. Jacobs (ljacobs@umn.edu) is a professor and the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair in Political Studies in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis.
authors.forename: Lawrence R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Jacobs
authors.affiliation: Suzanne Mettler is the Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions in the Department of Government at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York.
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mettler
mesh_terms: D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000592:standards*; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011057:Politics; D011639:Public Opinion; D014481:United States
keywords: Health Reform; Politics; Public Opinion