‘Obamacare’: Americans Split on Supreme Court Ruling, Gallup Poll Finds - East Idaho News
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‘Obamacare’: Americans Split on Supreme Court Ruling, Gallup Poll Finds

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Getty 062912 SupremeCourt?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1341005608552iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, including the law’s most controversial item — the individual mandate requiring everyone to have health insurance — a newly released poll finds that Americans are evenly split on the decision.

According to a Gallup poll released on Friday, 46 percent of adults agree with the court’s decision, while another 46 percent disagree. Unsurprisingly, the breakdown follows party lines, with 79 percent of Democrats agreeing and only 13 percent of Republicans disagreeing.

Despite the partisan divide, however, a majority of adults, 59 percent, said that they would consider the issue as “one of many important factors while voting” — suggesting that while the issue is indeed important, it won’t be make-or-break for either candidate with the bulk of voters.

Roughly the same number of Democrats, Republicans and Independents felt this way; 60 percent of Democrats said a candidate’s position on healthcare was one of many important factors, 60 percent of Independents responded this way and 59 percent of Republicans agreed.

Gallup also polled people on what ought to happen next — now that the court has found it constitutional, where should the law go from here? The responses were somewhat polarized, with the majority of respondents split between upholding the law, expanding it, and getting rid of it all together. Twenty-five percent of adults said that they would like Congress to “keep the law in place and pass further legislation to expand the government’s role in healthcare beyond what the law currently does,” while 31 percent responded that they would like Congress to “repeal the law entirely.”

Twenty-one percent said that they would like to repeal some parts of the law, though the poll did not specify which parts.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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