Recent polling conducted by McLaughlin & Associates for the 2017 Project asked Americans, “If you could undo one thing that President Obama has done as president, what would it be?” The choices that the poll provided were “overregulation of the economy,” “high deficit spending,” “tax increases,” “the economic stimulus package,” and “Obamacare.” And the winner, by a wide margin, was Obamacare.
In all, 7 percent of respondents listed the “economic stimulus” as the thing they’d most like to undo, 7 percent listed overregulation of the economy, 10 percent listed tax increases, 18 percent listed high deficit spending, and 32 percent listed Obamacare. In other words, more people listed Obamacare than any two other answers combined.
(Eleven percent said they wouldn’t undo anything Obama has done; 9 percent said they’d undo “something else,” and 6 percent said they didn’t know.)
The poll included 37 percent Democrats and 32 percent Republicans.
In terms of being the thing people most want to undo from the Obama era, Obamacare “won”—overwhelmingly, by at least 10 percentage points—among each of the following groups: women, men, those under 30 years of age, those between 30 and 40 years of age, those between 41 and 55 years of age, those who are Hispanic, those who are Asian, those who are white, those who are Protestant, those who are Catholic, those who are Jewish, those who make under $40,000, those who make over $40,000, those who are very conservative, those who are somewhat conservative, those who are moderate, those who disapprove of President Obama’s job performance, and those who are undecided about Obama’s job performance.
The poll’s respondents also said they thought Obamacare “should be repealed and replaced with a conservative alternative that aims to lower health costs and help people get insurance” (44 percent), rather than having Obamacare “remain the law of land, either in its current form or in amended form” (32 percent), or “repeal[ing it] but not replac[ing it] with an alternative” (16 percent). With such a conservative alternative—in other words, one that deals with both costs and coverage—in play, respondents favored repeal by a tally of nearly 2-to-1: 60 to 32 percent.
In light of such numbers, those who don’t think Obamacare can be repealed are clearly not listening to the American people—just like Obama and his congressional allies clearly didn’t listen to the people when they passed Obamacare in the first place.
Isn’t it time to listen to the American people and give them what they want?
© 2014 Weekly Standard LLC. Reprinted with permission.