Poll: Most Americans disapprove of how Congress has handled health care

A quarter of Americans — 28 percent — said they want to repeal Obamacare completely, according to a poll by PBS NewsHour and Marist.

Forty-three percent of respondents said they want more from the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, while only 6 percent said they wanted Obamacare to do less. Another 18 percent of Americans said they want to keep Obamacare as is.

Respondents were sharply divided by party affiliation. Two-thirds of Republican respondents said they want to get rid of Obamacare altogether, compared to 5 percent of Democrats and 27 percent of people who identified as politically independent who felt the same.

And these opinions remained largely unmoved since February, according to previous Marist polls.

This comes after a summer of political haggling led by Senate and House Republicans failed to produce enough votes to dismantle Obamacare, despite multiple attempts. Many Republicans in Congress built their 2016 election campaigns on a commitment to undo the Affordable Care Act.

Three-quarters of Americans — 78 percent — said they disapproved of how Congress has handled health care so far. Only 11 percent of respondents said they approved of Congress’ performance on this issue, and another 10 percent said they were unsure of how they felt.

That dissatisfaction resonated across political parties with widespread disapproval among Democrats (92 percent), people who are politically independent (80 percent) and even Republicans (67 percent).

Disapproval among Americans about how Congress has performed on health care grew substantially since June when two-thirds of U.S. adults said they weren’t happy with Congressional action on health care reform, according to a poll from PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist.

The PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll contacted 1,105 U.S. adults using landline and mobile phones between September 25 and September 27. There is a 2.9 percent margin of error.