Poll: After rough debut, views on Obamacare barely budge

Buffeted by terrible headlines since its online insurance marketplace debuted with a host of glitches on October 1, Obamacare is proving surprisingly resilient in the court of public opinion.

According to a new Gallup poll, a slim majority of Americans – 52 percent – believe the law should be repealed entirely or scaled back. It’s a stout number, but not much changed since mid-October, when 50 percent voiced the same opinion.

While Obamacare’s popularity has scarcely changed over the last two months, the political narrative surrounding it has been almost relentlessly negative: the law’s faulty website (now on the road to recovery) came under fierce scrutiny, millions of insurance plans were canceled as a result of the law’s regulations, and the president has been forced to apologize to Americans who felt misled by his vow that they could keep their current insurance under his proposal.

But if opponents of the law were hoping the law’s dismal debut would dramatically alter Americans’ opinions, according to Gallup, those hopes have yet to materialize.

Still, opposition to Obamacare remains a majority sentiment: 32 percent would elect to repeal the law entirely, and 20 percent would like to see it scaled back. Only 17 percent believe the law should be kept as is, and 20 percent say it should be expanded.

The crosstabs reveal a predictable partisan split: 90 percent of Republicans would like to repeal or scale back the law, a view shared by only 23 percent of Democrats.

Gallup’s poll, which surveyed 1,107 adults nationwide between December 3 and 4, carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.