July 5, 2012
Americans See More Economic Harm Than Good in Health Law
Independents help tilt the balance to the negativeby Frank Newporthttp://www.gallup.com/poll/155513/Americans-Economic-Harm-Good-Health-Law.aspxPRINCETON, NJ -- Americans are more likely to say the 2010 healthcare law upheld by the Supreme Court last week will hurt the national economy (46%) rather than help it (37%), while 18% say they don't know or that it will have no effect.
Healthcare spending accounts for between one-sixth and one-fifth of the U.S. gross domestic product. Thus, the overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system that the Affordable Care Act provides will certainly have an effect not just on the U.S. healthcare system, but on the U.S. economy more broadly. Not even economists who study this for a living can estimate the ACA's precise impact on the U.S. economy over the years ahead, given that the bill is huge and multifaceted, and carries with it many assumptions about cost savings and how the healthcare system will react to its provisions. Additionally, while some of the law's provisions have gone into effect, the majority of them have yet to be implemented, providing no real-world empirical evidence on its full economic impact.
Average Americans are certainly in no better position than economists to know exactly how the legislation will affect the economy, but their assumptions and perceptions have political repercussions nevertheless. And at this point, Americans' views on the economic impact of the ACA are more negative than positive.
Views of the economic impact of the ACA are, as is true with everything else about the legislation, bound up with politics. Republicans, who generally oppose the ACA, overwhelmingly think it will hurt the economy, while Democrats, who generally favor it, think it will help. Independents tilt toward the "hurt" rather than the "help" position.
Democrats are a little less likely to say the ACA will help the economy than Republicans are to say it will hurt it. The fact that independents are more likely to say it will hurt than help the economy -- by a 14-percentage-point margin -- is important in the context of the current presidential election.
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