Even among those who don't have employee benefits, a considerable portion of Americans say they are opposed to the health reform law as currently constituted, according to a new poll.
Among uninsured consumers, by a two-to-one margin, more people are opposed to the Affordable Care Act than they are in favor of it, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported based on a survey it conducted. More specifically, 47 percent said that they were not supportive of the individual mandate, compared to 24 percent who said it was doing good things.
Sentiment about the ACA has eroded significantly compared to a previously performed KFF survey. In that analysis, which was performed in December, 36 percent of those without health insurance said that they were behind the tenants of the law, versus 43 percent who considered it to be counterproductive.
This news comes following President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, in which he devoted a portion of the speech to the ACA and more people signing up for it after the flawed rollout.
"Already, because of the Affordable Care Act, more than three million Americans under age 26 have gained coverage under their parents' plans," said Obama. "More than nine million Americans have signed up for private health insurance or Medicaid coverage."
Fact checkers have indicated that this statistic is somewhat misleading, noting how it's next to impossible to establish that so many people have enrolled for Medicaid, mainly because the program was in place before the health law was implemented.
As it pertains to the employer mandate, which won't go into effect until 2015, business owners are still largely opposed it. More than two-thirds of owners and executives said that they thought it would have a negative impact on their company this year, according to a survey performed by a business advisory and advocacy law firm.
