By a 20-point margin, voters trust Democrats over Republicans to handle Obamacare

A new poll released Friday found that, by a wide margin, voters trust Democrats more than Republicans to handle the future of Obamacare.

The Kaiser Family Foundation poll found 59% of voters trust Democrats to handle the Affordable Care Act, as opposed to 39% who trust Republicans on the issue. 

The poll was conducted before former President Donald Trump, the front-runner in the GOP primary race for president in 2024, revived his call to repeal and replace the ACA, better known as Obamacare, even though Trump has failed to say what exactly he would replace it with or how his plan would lower costs. 

On Sunday, Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during an interview on “Meet the Press” that he too wants to repeal and replace Obamacare because “Obamacare hasn’t worked.”

Like Trump, DeSantis gave no concrete policy proposals about what his replacement plan would look like or how it would lower costs, saying instead that he would release his proposal “probably in the spring.” 

KFF has been tracking support for Obamacare since it was first enacted in 2010. The law was unpopular for years, as Republicans attacked it and vowed to replace it when they regained control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

However, once Republicans won unified control in 2016 and unsuccessfully attempted to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a plan that would have caused millions to lose their health insurance coverage and raised costs for millions of others, support for Obamacare crept up. 

As of May, the last time KFF conducted its tracking poll, support for Obamacare stood at 59%, with 40% of voters holding an unfavorable view. 

Democrats, including President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign staff, plan to put Republicans on defense in 2024 over their plans to repeal Obamacare.

Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for Biden’s campaign, said voters should take Trump and the GOP’s talk of Obamacare repeal seriously.

According to NBC News, Moussa said in a statement: “40 million people — more than 1 in 10 Americans — have health insurance today because of the Affordable Care Act and Donald Trump just said he would try to rip it away if he returns to power. He was one vote away from getting it done when he was president — and we should take him at his word that he’ll try to do it again.”