A new poll shows that public support for healthcare reform dropped sharply in August.
The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll has support for the bill dropping 7 percentage points in August — down to 43 percent — while opposition rose 10 points to 45 percent.
Respondents listed healthcare as the third most important factor in deciding how they’ll vote this fall — behind the economy and “dissatisfaction with government.”
Forty-two percent of respondents said healthcare reform will play an “extremely important” role in their ballot-box decisions, on par with the 41 percent who said the same thing in June.
A series of insurance industry reforms, including a ban on lifetime or annual caps on insurance coverage and free preventive care on new insurance plans, have proved popular in polls, but the popularity of the overhaul on the whole hasn’t improved. Plus, opposition to other provisions — namely, the requirement that nearly all Americans buy insurance coverage — has increased. The so-called “individual mandate” was opposed by 70 percent of the Kaiser poll’s respondents.
