West Long Branch, NJ – Public opinion of the recently unveiled Senate health care reform bill isn’t any better than it was for the House version passed in May. There are some signs that Republicans may be losing confidence in how this issue is being handled by their party’s leadership. The latest Monmouth University Poll also finds that Congress as a whole as well as its partisan leadership receive generally negative reviews, with the House speaker doing better than the Senate majority leader among their fellow Republicans.
Just 27% of Americans approve of the Senate health care reform bill introduced last week while a majority of 56% disapprove. These results are nearly identical to the public’s response to a similar bill passed by the House in May, which stood at 32% approve and 55% disapprove. However, Republicans are less supportive of this new bill (49%) than they were of the House version two months ago (71%). Current support among independents (30% now versus 29% for the House bill) and Democrats (7% now versus 6% for the House bill) is nearly identical to what it was in May.
The public is divided on how this new Senate bill stacks up against the House version. About 1-in-5 (21%) say the Senate bill is better, 3-in-10 (31%) say it is worse, and 3-in-10 (31%) say it is about the same. Only 38% of Republicans say the Senate bill is better than the original House version, although just 9% say it is worse. Half (51%) of Democrats say the Senate bill is worse and just 8% say it is an improvement over the House version.
“The Republican base does not express overwhelming confidence in how their party’s leadership is handling health care reform. There has been a drop in support since passage of the House bill two months ago, which partly explains why the new bill is on life support just days after it was introduced,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
If the Senate bill becomes law, nearly half of the public (46%) expects their own health care costs to go up, although this belief ranges from 69% of Democrats to 39% of independents and 27% of Republicans. Only 10% of Americans think their costs would go down as a result of this bill – including just 19% of Republicans, 11% of independents, and 3% of Democrats. Another one-third of the public (35%) expects that their costs will remain about the same if this bill is enacted into law. These results are basically the same as opinion of the House bill in May, although Republicans are now somewhat more likely to expect their own health care costs will go up under the Senate bill (27%) than felt that way about the House version (17%).
Similarly, 39% of the public expects that their own access to quality health care will get worse under the new bill and just 14% believe it will get better. Another 43% feel their access to quality health care will remain about the same as it is now if the new bill becomes law.
A plurality of 44% say the primary motivation for pushing this legislation is so that Republicans in Congress can score a political victory. Only 21% say the driving force behind this bill is a genuine attempt to fix the health care system, although 30% say both motivations are equally at work. These results are almost identical to how the public saw passage of the House bill – 46% said it was politically motivated, 21% said it was a genuine fix, and 27% said it was motivated by both factors equally.
The Monmouth University Poll also finds that public opinion of Congress continues to wallow in the gutter, with just 19% approving of the legislative branch’s performance and 70% disapproving. The vast majority of Democrats (77%), independents (73%), and Republicans (57%) give Congress a negative job rating.
The leaders of the two chambers of Congress do note fare any better in the court of public opinion. On the Senate side, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell earns a 12% approve and 38% disapprove rating, with 49% offering no opinion. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who just assumed the post in January, gets a 17% approve and 28% disapprove rating, with 55% having no opinion.
In the House of Representatives, Speaker Paul Ryan has a 23% approve and 43% disapprove rating, with 34% having no opinion. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has a 17% approve and 42% disapprove rating, with 41% having no opinion.
In terms of net negative ratings – approve minus disapprove -McConnell (-26), Pelosi (-25), and Ryan (-20) are all in the same ballpark. Schumer (-11) fairs a little better, but is the least known of the four leaders. While Ryan gets a net +26 positive rating from his fellow Republicans (47% approve to 21% disapprove), McConnell earns a split decision (+1, 24% to 23%) from the same group. Both Pelosi (+17, 34% to 17%) and Schumer (+11, 26% to 15%) earn net positive ratings from their fellow Democrats.
Examining how these leaders are viewed by the opposite party, Pelosi gets a net negative -59 rating (6% approve to 65% disapprove) among Republicans while Ryan earns a net negative -55 rating (7% to 62%) rating from Democrats. McConnell gets a net negative -45 rating (6% to 51%) from Democrats while Schumer gets a net negative -30 rating (10% to 40%) from Republicans.
“These ratings demonstrate just how potent a mobilizing factor these Congressional leaders are for voters of the opposite party,” said Murray. “It is also worth noting that Ryan is significantly more popular with Republican voters than McConnell is.”
The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from July 13 to 16, 2017 with 800 adults in the United States. The results in this release have a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent. The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ.
QUESTIONS AND RESULTS
(* Some columns may not add to 100% due to rounding.)
[Q1 previously released.]
2. Do you approve or disapprove of the job the U.S. Congress is doing?
| TREND: | July 2017 | May 2017 | March 2017 | Jan. 2017 |
| Approve | 19% | 19% | 25% | 23% |
| Disapprove | 70% | 68% | 59% | 66% |
| (VOL) No opinion | 11% | 13% | 16% | 11% |
| (n) | (800) | (1,002) | (801) | (801) |
| TREND: Continued | Sept. 2016* | Aug. 2016* | June 2016* | March 2016 | Jan. 2016 | Dec. 2015 | Oct. 2015 | Sept. 2015 | Aug. 2015 | July 2015 | June 2015 | April 2015 | Jan. 2015 | Dec. 2014 | July 2013 |
| Approve | 15% | 14% | 17% | 22% | 17% | 16% | 17% | 19% | 18% | 18% | 19% | 21% | 18% | 17% | 14% |
| Disapprove | 77% | 78% | 76% | 68% | 73% | 73% | 71% | 71% | 72% | 69% | 71% | 67% | 70% | 73% | 76% |
| (VOL) No opinion | 8% | 9% | 7% | 10% | 10% | 10% | 12% | 11% | 11% | 12% | 10% | 12% | 11% | 11% | 10% |
| (n) | (802) | (803) | (803) | (1,008) | (1,003) | (1,006) | (1,012) | (1,009) | (1,203) | (1,001) | (1,002) | (1,005) | (1,003) | (1,008) | (1,012) |
* Registered voters
[QUESTIONS 3 – 6 WERE ROTATED]
3. Do you approve or disapprove of the job Mitch McConnell is doing as Senate Majority Leader, or do you have no opinion of him?
| July 2017 | |
| Approve | 12% |
| Disapprove | 38% |
| (VOL) No opinion | 49% |
| (n) | (800) |
4. Do you approve or disapprove of the job Chuck Schumer is doing as Senate Minority Leader, or do you have no opinion of him?
| July 2017 | |
| Approve | 17% |
| Disapprove | 28% |
| (VOL) No opinion | 55% |
| (n) | (800) |
5. Do you approve or disapprove of the job Paul Ryan is doing as Speaker of the House, or do you have no opinion of him?
| July 2017 | |
| Approve | 23% |
| Disapprove | 43% |
| (VOL) No opinion | 34% |
| (n) | (800) |
6. Do you approve or disapprove of the job Nancy Pelosi is doing as House Minority Leader, or do you have no opinion of her?
| July 2017 | |
| Approve | 17% |
| Disapprove | 42% |
| (VOL) No opinion | 41% |
| (n) | (800) |
[Q7-22 previously released.]
23. Have you heard that the U.S. Senate is currently working on a bill to repeal or replace certain provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare, or haven’t you heard about this?
| July 2017 | |
| Heard | 92% |
| Not heard | 8% |
| (n) | (800) |
24. Do you approve or disapprove of this Senate bill?
| July 2017 | May 2017* | |
| Approve | 27% | 32% |
| Disapprove | 56% | 55% |
| (VOL) Don’t know | 17% | 13% |
| (n) | (800) | (1,002) |
[*May’17 question was asked about the bill that had just been passed by the House.]
25. Which of the following statements describes this bill more: it is a genuine attempt to fix the health care system – or – Republicans want to pass this largely so they can claim a political victory, or both reasons equally? [CHOICES WERE ROTATED]
| July 2017 | May 2017* | |
| It is a genuine attempt to fix the health care system | 21% | 21% |
| Republicans want to pass this largely so they can claim a political victory | 44% | 46% |
| Both reasons equally | 30% | 27% |
| (VOL) Don’t know | 5% | 6% |
| (n) | (800) | (1,002) |
[*May ’17 question was asked about the House bill.]
26. Do you think this bill will be better, worse, or about the same as the one passed by the House of Representatives two months ago?
| July 2017 | |
| Better | 21% |
| Worse | 31% |
| About the same | 31% |
| (VOL) Don’t know | 18% |
| (n) | (800) |
[QUESTIONS 27 & 28 WERE ROTATED]
27. If this new bill becomes law, do you think your own health care costs would go up, go down, or stay about the same?
| July 2017 | May 2017* | |
| Go up | 46% | 44% |
| Go down | 10% | 13% |
| Stay the same | 35% | 36% |
| (VOL) Don’t know | 8% | 7% |
| (n) | (800) | (1,002) |
[*May ’17 question was asked about the House bill.]
28. If this new bill becomes law, do you think your ability to access high quality health care would get better, get worse, or stay about the same?
| July 2017 | |
| Get better | 14% |
| Get worse | 39% |
| Stay about the same | 43% |
| (VOL) Don’t know | 5% |
| (n) | (800) |
METHODOLOGY
The Monmouth University Poll was sponsored and conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute from July 13 to 16, 2017 with a national random sample of 800 adults age 18 and older, in English. This includes 400 contacted by a live interviewer on a landline telephone and 400 contacted by a live interviewer on a cell phone. Telephone numbers were selected through random digit dialing and landline respondents were selected with a modified Troldahl-Carter youngest adult household screen. Monmouth is responsible for all aspects of the survey design, data weighting and analysis. Final sample is weighted for region, age, education, gender and race based on US Census information. Data collection support provided by Braun Research (field) and SSI (RDD sample). For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling has a maximum margin of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points (unadjusted for sample design). Sampling error can be larger for sub-groups (see table below). In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.
| DEMOGRAPHICS (weighted) |
| Self-Reported |
| 26% Republican |
| 40% Independent |
| 34% Democrat |
| 49% Male |
| 51% Female |
| 31% 18-34 |
| 34% 35-54 |
| 35% 55+ |
| 65% White |
| 12% Black |
| 15% Hispanic |
| 8% Asian/Other |
Click on pdf file link below for full methodology and results by key demographic groups.
