Gallup, fresh off noting that President Obama’s trustworthiness and decisiveness have been found wanting, says the Affordable Care Act, which has never been popular, is now even more unpopular:

Americans’ views of the 2010 healthcare law have worsened in recent weeks, with 40% approving and 55% disapproving of it. For most of the past year, Americans have been divided on the law, usually tilting slightly toward disapproval. The now 15-percentage-point gap between disapproval and approval is the largest Gallup has measured in the past year.

That 15% gap shows a decided shift in popular opinion to the negative about the law.  And say what Democrats might about running on this next election, they know as well as anyone that a 15 percent shift on any one issue is significant.  Especially an issue to which they are the sole reason for its existence and therefore the sole party to blame.

The top three reasons given for disapproval were, “Government interference/Forcing people to do things” at 37%, “Increases costs/Makes healthcare less affordable” at 21% and 11% disapproved because they’d lost their insurance.

Of the three reasons, all of which are significant, perhaps the last one is the most significant.  These are people who are likely to have nothing good to say about the law or the architects of the law.  And because it effects them personally, may take political action (i.e. vote) to satisfy their anger.  It may not be the most positive motivation in the world, but it can certainly be devastatingly effective.

The fact that the President is attempting to unilaterally thwart the provisions of his own law to save his and his party’s collective hides, notwithstanding, this is probably going to get worse before it gets better.  Expect the insurance industry to consider lawsuits to kill the requirements. And there will likely be other legal challenges.  Of course that will then let the White House do its favorite thing to do and attack and demonize them.  But the only reason this predicament exists is a result of the Democratic party’s agenda.

Gallup concludes:

Gallup has long found that Americans have been generally divided in their views of the healthcare law, both before and after its passage. Now, they are tilting more significantly toward disapproval.

That more negative evaluation may not have as much to do with the content of the law as the implementation of it, in particular how that squares with the president’s earlier characterization of how the law would work.

Some Democratic members of Congress, as well as former President Bill Clinton, are urging the president to support legislation that would rewrite portions of the law to allow Americans to keep their insurance plan if they are being dropped from it, as a way to honor his pledge. At this point, it is not clear whether the president will seriously consider that, or attempt to adjust how the law is administered without rewriting pieces of it.

Additionally, many members of Congress from both parties are asking the administration to extend the deadline by a year for Americans to get health insurance before facing a fine, given the ongoing technical issues with the exchange websites, which are still being fixed. The White House recently extended the deadline by six weeks.

How the administration handles these challenges to the implementation of the law, plus any new ones that emerge in the coming months, could be critical in determining the trajectory of the “disapprove” line in Gallup’s trend chart for the healthcare law.

Obviously this was written before the President’s announcement today.  Politically it appears to be panic-city at the White House and among the Democrats.   When you have Howard Dean – Howard Dean for heaven sake – questioning the legality of the president’s announcement today, you know there’s trouble in Democrat-land.  How long it will last is anyone’s guess at this point, but I think it is safe to say, we’re nowhere near the end of this debacle.

~McQ