Bloomberg poll shows majority opposition to ObamaCare

If Democrats felt heartened after yesterday’s Gallup poll showing a plurality of support for their new ObamaCare plan, Bloomberg’s survey should bring them back to Earth.  The survey asked over a thousand adults their opinions of the ObamaCare bill during and after its passage, and like almost every poll taken in the last several months, a majority of respondents opposed it.  Moreover, a majority also consider it a government takeover of the American health-care system:

Americans remain skeptical about the health-care overhaul even after the U.S. House passed landmark legislation that promises to provide access to medical coverage for tens of millions of the uninsured.

At the same time, most say the government should play a role in ensuring everyone has access to affordable care, a Bloomberg National Poll shows. A majority also agree that health care is a private matter and consider the new rules approved by Congress to be a government takeover. …

While more than six of 10 respondents agree the government should play a role in ensuring Americans have health care, 53 percent say the plan amounts to a government-run system. Yet six of 10 also say individuals should be responsible for making sure their health-care needs are met.

The truth is that Democrats have a tough road ahead with this bill.  Most of its benefits don’t kick in for years, but the taxes and fees start almost immediately.  Those will start impacting job creation and investment in an economy already failing to produce much of either.  The longer it takes for jobs to start getting created again, the more voters will link this to ObamaCare and the Democrats who insisted on passing it during a deep recession.

It also presents another problem for Democrats, which is that they will own every failure within the American health-care system from this point forward.  Had Republicans successfully blocked ObamaCare, they would have owned them, but now it all falls on the Democrats.  Every sob story now becomes either the fault of legislation that went too far or didn’t go far enough — and don’t think Democrats won’t use the latter to push ObamaCare into single-payer territory.

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