PRINCETON, NJ -- While 49% of Americans overall say Congress' passing healthcare reform is a "good thing," support is greater among Americans who currently lack health insurance. Passage of the bill also enjoys broad support among two of the populations least likely to have health insurance: younger adults and adults living in lower-income households. Older, higher-income, and insured Americans have more mixed reactions. The lone exception is seniors, 54% of whom see passage of the bill as a negative.
A sharp divide is also seen by marital status -- another demographic factor related to healthcare coverage. By 51% to 41%, married adults call the bill a bad thing. In contrast, unmarried adults call it a good thing by an even wider margin, 60% to 26%.
Overall, the largest subgroup differences in support for the healthcare bill are seen by party identification. In a related finding, 73% of nonwhites (disproportionally Democratic in their party identification) say the bill's passage was a good thing, compared with 40% of whites (who lean Republican). The average income of nonwhites is also lower than that of whites, which likely contributes to their higher support for the healthcare vote.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,005 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted March 22, 2010, as part of Gallup Daily tracking. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones and cellular phones.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
Polls conducted entirely in one day, such as this one, are subject to additional error or bias not found in polls conducted over several days.
