Politics

Obamacare favorability drops among women, Dems

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Women and Democrats are now turning on Obamacare, which is more unpopular than ever according to a new Kaiser Health Tracking Poll.

The poll, which was released Friday, found that just 33 percent had a favorable opinion of the president’s signature health-care law. Forty nine percent have an unfavorable view of Obamacare, which has been plagued with serious problems since it went into effect last month.

The poll notes that the 16-point gap between favorable and unfavorable has only been seen once before. That was in October 2011, when the law received a lot of “negative attention in the Republican presidential primaries and the country was focused on the upcoming election and the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

In Oct. 2011, 34 percent had a favorable view of the law and 51 percent had an unfavorable view.

And while views of Obamacare trended negative in November among most demographic groups, Kaiser notes that the greatest drop in favorability occurred among Democrats — with 55 percent viewing the law favorably, compared to 70 percent a month earlier.

Women also polled more negatively on the law, with 48 percent of women saying they viewed the law unfavorably, compared to 32 percent seeing it favorably. According to Kaiser, for the first time in its poll, “the share of women with an unfavorable view outnumbered those with a favorable view by a large margin.”

The downward polling trend comes as millions of Americans have received cancellation notices from their insurance provider due to Obamacare and the central Obamacare website continues to grapple with problems.

“This negative shift in opinion comes amid heavy news coverage of the website problems plaguing the law’s online health insurance exchanges and stories about individuals being dropped from their insurance coverage because their plans don’t meet minimum requirements set by the ACA, stories that were followed closely by more than half the American public this month,” the Kaiser poll notes.

The poll was conducted from Nov. 13-18 among 1,204 adults nationwide and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

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Caroline May