Obamacare popularity near all-time high despite Trump’s calls for repeal

A new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that Americans' support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — also known as Obamacare — is surging, making former President Donald Trump's recent call to repeal it even more politically risky.

Politico reported on the poll Saturday, which gauged Americans' support for the 2010 healthcare reform law along with other health-related topics, including Medicare, Medicaid and abortion. Kaiser found that Obamacare's popularity was not only big among both Democrats and independents, but that it was even growing on Republicans. The last time the ACA's popularity was surveyed, 26% of Republicans had a favorable opinion of it, compared to just 16% of Republicans supporting the law when Republicans unsuccessfully tried to repeal it in 2017 despite holding majorities in both chambers of Congress.

"Republican voters weren’t itching for [Trump] to come out and make a statement on the ACA," Ashley Kirzinger, the Kaiser Family Foundation's (KFF) director of survey methodology, told Politico.

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Politico also analyzed previous KFF polling data and found that Americans' overall favorability for Obamacare is hovering just shy of 60%, with nearly all Democrats supporting it, and 62% of independents viewing the law in a positive light. That's its second-highest approval rating ever, with the ACA registering slightly higher numbers earlier in 2023. Democrats are far more eager to publicly debate the merits of the ACA, with 70% of Democratic-leaning respondents telling KFF in its latest poll that they felt it was "very important" for candidates to discuss it, with only 32% of Republican survey participants saying the same.

In 2016, Trump ran on repealing Obamacare, yet failed to do so during his first year in office, when Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) showed up at the last minute after undergoing brain cancer treatment to save the ACA (which spawned a famous WWE-inspired meme). However, the ex-president has not relented in his efforts to torpedo the popular legislation, promising in a Truth Social post to "REPLACE IT with MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE."

"Obamacare Sucks!!!" The 45th president of the United States wrote early Wednesday morning.

Senate Republicans were lukewarm about Trump's pledge to repeal the popular law, with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) likening it to "so much spaghetti on the wall" and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) lauding Obamacare's protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions.

READ MORE: 'Spaghetti on the wall': GOP senators say Trump's policy proposals 'unlikely to happen'