Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt repeated twice the claim that "the American people" oppose the repeal of the Affordable Care Act—despite polling showing majorities of Americans still oppose the law itself and are more likely to support candidates running on repeal platforms.
BEN LABOLT: Mitt Romney is campaigning against the American people when he wants to repeal the affordable care act. By a 10- to 15-point margin, the American people disagree with him—and he’s proposed no alternative. He says he’s campaigning on replace—
RUSSERT: There's a lot of polls that show that the American people are not in favor of the affordable care act, especially amongst independent voters.
LABOLT: They’re certainly not in favor of repeal and they believe that this is a settled debate, if you look at the polling, and they support the individual provisions within it. Mitt Romney has made the central premise of his candidacy with his record at Bain.
A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found 49 percent of Americans support the repeal of the Affordable Care Act; 47 percent said the law should remain. Independent voters support repeal by a 49 to 41 margin.
A Washington Post/ABC poll released Monday showed a plurality of adults (38 percent) view Romney’s call to repeal the law a "major reason to support" his candidacy; 29 percent said it was a major reason to oppose his candidacy, and 29 percent said it was not a major factor.
Even in a poll in which the health care law’s favorability has improved since the Supreme Court ruling, a majority of Americans still oppose the law: 52 percent of Americans opposed the law (to 48 percent supporting) in a recent Reuters poll. Reuters found that more than half of registered voters were more likely to vote for their member of Congress if he were running on a repeal platform.
One outlier poll, by the Kaiser Family Foundation, showed 56 percent of respondents said Obamacare opponents should "stop their efforts to block the law and move on to other national problems."
In a Gallup poll released Monday, 60 percent of respondents said the health care law would make things worse for taxpayers; 57 percent believe the law the same for businesses, 51 percent for doctors, 46 percent for people with health insurance, and 42 percent for the respondents personally.
The RCP Average for the repeal of the health care law shows a +8.4 gap in favor of repeal.