Nearly two-thirds of Utahns still want Congress to repeal Obamacare, a new UtahPolicy.com poll finds.
Of course, President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan’s first attempt at “repeal and replace” failed, when the speaker pulled the bill from a vote on March 25.
UtahPolicy’s pollster, Dan Jones & Associates, was in the midst of polling Utahns when that happened.
So some respondents knew a vote was soon to be taken, others knew that the vote failed.
Jones finds that 62 percent of Utahns still want Obamacare to be repealed, 36 percent want to keep the former president’s signature health care insurance program, and 2 percent didn’t know.
Jones polled 844 adults from March 22-29. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.37 percent.
At the time of the bill’s failure, Ryan, R-Wis., said the country would have Obamacare “for the foreseeable future.”
However, since then several preliminary attempts have been made to find a repeal and replace measure that could get the required number of votes between GOP moderates and archconservatives in the House.
So far those attempts have failed, as well.
Jones finds that while women want Obamacare repealed, they are more understanding of it than are men.
Only 32 percent of men want to keep the national health insurance program, but 41 percent of women do.
On the other side, 65 percent of men want it gone, while 58 percent of women agree.
Obamacare is a highly partisan issue:
- Utah Republicans want it repealed, 89-9 percent.
- Democrats want to keep it, 95-4 percent.
- And political independents, who don’t belong to any political party, are split: 51 percent want to keep it, 47 percent want it gone.
Utah Mormons don’t like Obamacare and want it repealed:
- Those who said they are “very active” in the LDS Church want it repealed, 79-19 percent.
- Those who stated that they are “somewhat” active in the Mormon faith oppose Obamacare, 67-29 percent.
- Those who were once Mormons, but no longer are, also want it gone, 78-23 percent.
However, Utah Catholics favor keeping Obamacare, 60-40 percent.
Protestants are evenly split, 50 percent say junk it, 50 percent say keep it.
Those of other religions say keep Obamacare, 56-42 percent.
And those who say they believe in no religion want to keep Obamacare, 74-24 percent.
The more educated you are, the more you want to keep Obamacare, Jones finds.
But even those with an advanced college degree – Ph.D., or law or medicine – are split, 49-49 percent on doing away with it.
Those with just a high school degree oppose Obamacare, 63-37 percent; those with a two-year associate degree or a technical degree oppose it, 70-27 percent; those with a four-year college degree want it repealed, 62-34 percent.
Utah’s two U.S. senators and four U.S. House members all are Republicans, and they all want to repeal and replace Obamacare.
But when they may get a chance to vote to do so is unknown.
