Voters really
don't want to see the Supreme Court strike down Obamacare subsidies for states that didn't set up their own health insurance exchanges. That's according to a poll conducted by Hart Research Associates for the SEIU. Specifically, asked how they'd feel if "the Supreme Court decided to restrict the availability of the tax credits under the Affordable Care Act only to the 16 states that created their own state health insurance exchanges, which means that these tax credits would no longer be available to people in the other 34 states," 63 percent said they disapproved, while just 29 percent approved.
The 29 percent approving of the loss of tax subsidies for 34 states is identical to the 29 percent of voters polled who wanted to see complete repeal of Obamacare. But the 19 percent who said they wanted to see major changes to the law apparently don't want those changes to include taking tax subsidies away.
There's also a danger for congressional Republicans: The poll asked people if they were more or less favorable toward Republicans based on the information that "Republican leaders in Congress have said they want the Supreme Court to take away the tax credits from people in the 34 states who buy insurance on the national health insurance exchange, and they say that such a ruling by the Supreme Court would help their efforts to totally repeal the Affordable Care Act." Just 27 percent said they felt more favorable toward Republicans after hearing that, while 55 percent felt less favorable.
As always, an internal poll is released because it supports the message of the organization releasing it, and unions like SEIU certainly want affordable health care. But a poll from a conservative group similarly finds that voters want the healthcare subsidies preserved. Congressional Republicans have shown that they don't care about voter opinion. The question, then, is whether public opinion will help sway even this partisan Supreme Court to notice the glaring weakness of the case.