It’s been a rough summer for opponents of the Affordable Care Act. “Obamacare” critics kept waiting for the policy to fail, but the law kept working beautifully, exceeding expectations.
ACA detractors kept waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to gut the health care system, but in a 6-3 ruling, the justices did the opposite.
If nothing else, Republicans can at least take comfort in the fact that the reform law isn’t popular, right? Wrong. Consider the latest Gallup report.
Shortly after the Supreme Court in late June turned back a second legal challenge to the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Americans’ approval of the law rose to 47%, the highest level since 2012.
Disapproval for ACA in the poll was at 48%, which means we’ve reached effective popularity parity for the first time in three years.
Support is up across the board — gender, race, age, education, and even party identification. What’s more, note that there’s been an 18-point swing over the course of about a year — from 56%-37% disapproval last summer, to 48%-47% disapproval now.
The Gallup data is consistent with the latest CBS News poll and the Kaiser Family Foundation’s latest tracking poll.
But that’s not the funny part.
The funny part is comparing “Obamacare” to Congress. The latest Gallup poll puts Congress’ most recent approval rating at 17%.
In other words, the Affordable Care Act is more than three times more popular than the Republican-run House and Senate, both of which would still love to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."