Majority of Floridians Want to Keep or Expand Obamacare and Oppose New Healthcare Proposals

Floridians are split about the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), sometimes referred to as Obamacare and are split about what to do about it according to a new poll released by the Business and Economic Polling Initiative at Florida Atlantic University. In addition, Floridians are opposed to almost all of the new healthcare proposals presented by President Trump.

A plurality of respondents approve of the ACA at 46% compared with 39% who disapprove. Similarly, 39% of Floridians would like to expand the law and 14% want to keep it as it is, however 18% want to repeal part of the law and 29% said to replace the entire law. Overall, 73% were concerned that people would lose their health insurance if the ACA were repealed and 64% of respondents said it was the government who should be responsible for ensuring all Americans have healthcare coverage while 19% disagreed with that statement.

Respondents were asked about six proposals regarding the ACA. Only one of the proposals had  net positive support at +14 (43% approving and 29% opposing), which would  lift the $2,600 cap in flexible spending accounts, which let workers set pretax money aside to pay out-out-pocket health costs.

The proposal to repeal the 3.8% tax on investment income, which yielded $18.3 billion for the government in 2015 to help fund the Affordable Care Act and which affects the highest earning households making more than $250,000 had 31% support and 40% opposition. Likewise the proposal to replace the healthcare subsidies with a refund tax credit between $2,000 and $4,000 depending of an individual’s age and income had 26% support and 38% opposition.

Public opinion strongly opposes other proposals including a proposal to reduce Federal funding to the Medicaid program which had 16% support and 74% oppose. The proposal to increase premiums by 30 percent for a year for those who let their insurance coverage lapse for at least 63 days had 15% support and 60% oppose. The least popular proposal has 8% support and 76% opposing and would allow insurers to increase what they can charge older people compared with younger consumers, from the current limit of three times up to five times more.

The survey was administered through Survey Sampling International (SSI) a Worldwide Leader in Survey Sampling and Data Collections, across every mode, for 36 years. The sample consisted of 500 completed surveys collected between March 10-13, 2017 and a 95% credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 4.3 percentage points. Responses for the entire sample were weighted to reflect the statewide distribution of the Florida population by gender, race/ethnicity, region, education and age according to latest American Community Survey data.