Support for Obamacare back at record high, Gallup poll shows

The Affordable Care Act never reached 50% approval while Obama was in office but its popularity surged when Donald Trump became president.

Keydra Manns

Dec 9, 2020

It looks like the public’s support for Obamacare is now at one of its highest points.

Support for the controversial healthcare plan created under the Barack Obama administration is at a high of 55% despite most Republicans wanting to repeal the law, per Gallup on Wednesday.

Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, is more popular now than when Obama was in office. Support for the bill averaged around 51% from 2017 through 2019. It did hit a record high of 55% in 2017 at the same time the Republican-majority House worked to repeal it.

Though the law never reached 50% while Obama was in office, polls say it saw a surge when Donald Trump became president.

Supreme Court Takes On ACA Case To Determine Legislation's Fate — A supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) stands in front of the Supreme Court of the United States as the Court begins hearing arguments from California v. Texas about the legality of the ACA on November 10, 2020 in Washington, DC. That was the first time that the Court is hearing a case with all three of President Donald Trump’s appointments; Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch, Bret Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. California v. Texas is the Republican’s latest effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act after repeated efforts to repeal the Act through the legislative process. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

According to the study, 68% of those who do not approve of the health care law want to see it replaced while 29% would rather see significant changes.

60% of Republicans are ready to axe Obamacare while 59% of Democrats are in favor of it.

Obama reflected on the ACA in a piece he wrote for The New Yorker this year, as previously reported by theGrio.

In the middle of a pandemic, this administration is trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court. Here’s how Joe and I fought to expand health care, protect millions of Americans with preexisting conditions, and actually get it done: https://t.co/U9RbHRLPBw
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 26, 2020

“My interest in health care went beyond policy or politics; it was personal, just as it was for Teddy [Kennedy}. Each time I met a parent struggling to come up with the money to get treatment for a sick child, I thought back to the night Michelle and I had to take three-month-old Sasha to the emergency room for what turned out to be viral meningitis,” wrote Obama.

“I remembered the terror and the helplessness we felt as the nurses whisked her away for a spinal tap, and the realization that we might never have caught the infection in time had the girls not had a regular pediatrician we felt comfortable calling in the middle of the night. Most of all, I thought about my mom, who had died in 1995, of uterine cancer.”

Obama has talked about the struggles his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, faced while fighting cancer and struggling to get the health coverage she needed and how it motivated him to push through the ACA. His mother was 52 when she passed.

At the Obamacare signing ceremony in 2010, Obama said, ‘I’m signing this bill on behalf of my mother, who argued with insurance companies even as she battled with cancer in her final days.”

Watch below to see the ACA signing ceremony.