Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump promised his supporters that he would make repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) a priority once elected. And his GOP cohorts in Congress are already preparing bills to do just that. It is doubtful they could pull off a complete repeal of Obamacare, because the Democrats have enough votes in the Senate to sustain a filibuster. But it is possible that the Republicans could use budget reconciliation to defund the health care program, and that would effectively kill it.
But if they do that, they will not be fulfilling the wishes of a substantial majority of Americans. About 57% of the general public wants to keep Obamacare (14% to keep it as it is, and 43% to keep it and make changes to improve it). Only 37% want to repeal Obamacare -- 20 points less than those who want to keep it.
Trump and the Republicans say they want to replace Obamacare with something better, but neither Trump nor the GOP Congress has been able to come up with a "better" plan. The pathetic ideas they have put forward would take health insurance away from millions of people, without improving either the cost or efficacy of medical care or health insurance.
They are playing with fire on Obamacare repeal, and if they go through with their plans to damage Medicare and Social Security, they will have a hard time in the elections of 2018 and 2020.
The chart above was made from information in a recent Gallup Poll -- done between November 9th and 13th of a random national sample of 1,019 adults, with a margin of error of 4 points.
