KFF/Harvard Survey on Public’s Health Care Agenda for the 112th Congress Finds An Uptick in Public Opposition to Health Reform As GOP Ramped Up Repeal Campaign

Though the public remains divided on health reform overall, according to a new survey jointly conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health, opposition to the new law ticked upward in January from 41 percent to 50 percent as Republicans ramped up efforts to repeal it.

The survey also showed that there is no groundswell of public support for overturning the law, with 47 percent wanting to either expand the law or keep it as is and 43 percent wanting to repeal the law and replace it with a Republican alternative or repeal the law and not replace it at all. Additionally, a majority of Americans (62 percent) oppose the idea of lawmakers using the appropriations process to defund or slow down implementation of the law.

While over half of Americans say they prefer spending cuts over new taxes as the main way to reduce the deficit (57 percent vs. 14 percent), there is little public consensus about where to achieve meaningful savings and a majority opposes any spending reductions in two of the nation’s largest entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security. Nearly half of Americans oppose any cuts in another major entitlement program, Medicaid.