Via Greg Sargent, I see that the New York Times decided to go the extra mile and do more than simply ask people if they support or oppose the healthcare reform law. They first asked them if they wanted the law repealed, and if so, what part they wanted repealed. The basic result was 48% in favor of keeping the law as is, 18% who wanted to repeal part of the law, and 20% who wanted to repeal the whole thing. The details look like this:
So 8% are opposed to everything and 11% are opposed to the individual mandate. And that’s about it. Not a single other provision was opposed by more than 1% of the respondents. Not even higher taxes! Hell, a full 14% were supposedly in favor of repeal but couldn’t name even a single provision they disliked.
It’s true that most people don’t know anything about anything. So this isn’t exactly man bites dog news. Still, with general opposition this small and this amorphous, and specific opposition limited almost entirely to the mandate, Democrats really shouldn’t have such a hard time selling their side of this. It’s yet another piece of evidence that, like it or not, healthcare reform is here to stay.
