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Poll shows Obamacare enrollment not budging public opinion

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Public opposition to Obamacare has barely moved since the Obama administration announced it had met its minimum threshold of seven million enrollments, according to a Friday Gallup poll.

A majority of Americans still disapprove of the Affordable Care Act, according to Gallup’s monthly poll of adults on the health-care law. Fifty-four percent disapprove, a statistical tie with last month’s 55 percent. Approval ticked up slightly more to 43 percent from early March’s 40 percent, but it remained within the margin of error.

The barely-improved numbers may indicate that despite the Obama administration’s declaration of victory on Obamacare, officials have been unable to win over the public with the health-care exchanges’ enrollment tally, which was announced a week before Gallup conducted its survey.

Gallup found that 45 percent of Americans still think Obamacare will make the U.S. health-care system worse, while 37 percent think it will make things better. Last month, 48 percent of adults felt the health-care law would make things worse, while 35 percent believed it would improve the industry.

In fact, the health-care law’s glitches and low enrollment haven’t drastically changed the public’s take on it at all over the past six months. Public disapproval about the law’s effects — which has always been higher than approval in Gallup findings — was virtually identical when the exchanges launched disastrously in October as it is today.

The big change in Friday’s findings is that a plurality of Americans think for the first time that Obamacare won’t make much a difference for themselves and their families. Forty-two percent believe the health-care law won’t change things for them, up from 36 percent last month; meanwhile, about one-third of adults expect it to make their health care worse off, down from 40 percent last month.

The portion of adults who expect Obamacare to improve their situations remains the lowest at 24 percent, where it’s hovered mostly unchanged since 2012.

The Obama administration has heavily pushed the Affordable Care Act as a massive success story since 7.5 million people have selected plans on federal and state exchanges. After Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius resigned officially Friday, the White House has represented her departure as a victory for Obamacare.

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