Approval of Obamacare has rebounded slightly:
Sargent sees this as evidence that in seven months the law will “recede as an issue, while other factors (candidates, the economy, the terrible map for Dems) come to the fore”:
The new poll finds that in March, 38 percent viewed the law favorably, versus 46 percent who saw it unfavorably. That’s a substantial narrowing from the 34-50 spread during the dark days of January, and a return almost to where opinion was in September (39-43), before the rollout disaster began.
Drum adds:
This suggests that the main reason for the blip was Obamacare’s well-publicized rollout problems. Once those got addressed, and people were able to sign up without too much hassle, opinions turned back around.
But the poll also finds that many of the uninsured remain unaware of the original deadline. Kilgore calls that “genuinely depressing news”:
The poll also shows that two-thirds of the uninsured have not attempted to secure insurance over the last six months, so it’s not like the problem can be attributed to the initial problems at healthcare.gov, unless you assume large numbers of people were spooked by the bad publicity (unlikely, given the apparent lack of knowledge about all aspects of Obamacare evident among the uninsured). You can certainly argue that the administration and Obamacare proponents have vastly underestimated the difficulty of informing the uninsured of their new options. But on the other hand, the common conservative claim that “America” has looked at Obamacare thoroughly and rejected it misses what is going on almost entirely.
Suderman’s takeaway from the same poll: “Half the uninsured say they’ll stay uninsured.”
The Dish 