83% agree if private insurance companies lose money selling health insurance under the Obamacare program, taxpayers should not have to bail them out to cover their losses.

67% agree subsidies to insurance companies are not only a bailout for the companies but also hide the fact that Obamacare is failing.

. . .

  • Health care is at the top of a group of issues that voters want 2018 midterm candidates to talk about, but it’s a much higher priority for Democratic voters (39 percent) and independent voters (32 percent) than Republican voters (13 percent); and a lower priority than other issues among voters living in areas where there are competitive 2018 House, Senate, or Governor races.

. . .

In a letter to President Trump, Leader McConnell, and Speaker Ryan, a dozen health policy leaders recommend that health reform continue to be a top priority in 2018.  Insurance premiums continue to soar, and millions of people have little or no choice of health insurers. The group says individuals need to be empowered with greater flexibility and choice and that states are better equipped than Washington to oversee their health insurance markets. This requires legislative action from Congress to redirected resources and provide them with greater regulatory flexibility.

. . .

As President Donald Trump completes his first year in office, Americans are increasingly concerned about health care, and their faith that government can fix it has fallen.

A new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 48 percent named health care as a top problem for the government to focus on in the next year, up 17 points in the last two years.

The poll allows Americans to name up to five priorities and found a wide range of top concerns, including taxes, immigration and the environment. But aside from health care, no single issue was named by more than 31 percent.

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  • 65 percent of GOP respondents disapprove of the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to have health insurance, from 51 percent in September.
  • Disapproval of the mandate increased from 49 percent to 54 percent among all respondents, largely because of sentiment among GOP voters.

Public sentiment over Obamacare’s individual mandate, which requires everyone to buy insurance, is divided, a new poll finds.

Nearly 40 percent of respondents in a poll from the left-leaning think tank Urban Institute want the mandate repealed, while another 29.6 percent think it should be kept. About 30 percent of respondents were undecided about its fate.

. . .

Republicans and Democrats sparred during a hearing on Tuesday before the House Budget Committee on “The Failures of Obamacare: Harmful Effects and Broken Promises,” showing the division between Democrats who continue to defend the law and Republicans who heard clearly the call of the electorate to repeal and replace it. While millions of people have received health coverage under Obamacare, many millions more have felt personal harm. The law has negatively impacted young people, families, the poor, and businesses. Hundreds of thousands of people who purchased ObamaCare plans and paid their premiums have lost their coverage, and the law contains nearly two dozen taxes totaling more than $1 trillion, many of which are passed along to middle-income consumers in the form of higher premiums.

. . .

Practically since Obamacare became law, Republicans in Congress have been promising to repeal it. The law has been consistently unpopular during that time as well.

The January edition of the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll shows that those who want to repeal Obamacare outnumber those opposed 48 percent to 47 percent. This is higher than in the November edition, which found that 43 percent wanted to repeal or scale back the law.

. . .

The U.S. public has been split in their views on the Affordable Care Act since the law was enacted in 2010, but what about those Americans who actually buy their health insurance through the federal program’s marketplaces?

Although most Obamacare participants give high marks to their health coverage, a growing segment of ACA exchange users has expressed frustration with rising costs and what they see as a shortage of plan options. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, the share of Obamacare enrollees who are dissatisfied with their plans rose from 14 percent in 2014 to 29 percent in 2016.

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The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds that health care is among the top issues, with the economy and jobs and immigration, Americans want President-elect Donald Trump and the next Congress to address in 2017.