Public does not support repeal

It looks like the House will delay a vote on repealing health reform after this weekend’s violence in Arizona. But a brief released this month by Kaiser Family Foundation shows that the public is still opposed to the repeal legislation proposed by the House.

According to Kaiser’s tracking polls only 26 percent of those questioned want to entirely repeal the health reform legislation. About 41 percent of the public want to keep the law or expand it. Nearly 25 percent want to repeal part of the law, which no one is proposing, and keep other parts. It’s clear what some people want to repeal: the individual mandate.

After all, 78 percent of those polled say they like small business tax credits; 72 percent of people like closing the doughnut hole in Medicare Part D; 71 percent like giving premium subsidies to low and middle income people to purchase insurance; and 71 percent of the public likes the elimination of pre-existing conditions. The only piece of reform that polled poorly was the mandate. Only 27 percent want to keep that provision.

So in the march to a repeal vote expect a concentrated focus on the one unpopular piece of reform. And don’t be surprised if some of the more successful lies about reform (read: death panels) pop back into the public dialogue.