SurveyMonkey’s online tracking poll — mostly completed before the horrid Congressional Budget Office numbers were released — shows health care has now risen to the most important issue for 23 percent of Americans, an increase of six points in just a few weeks. Moreover, the bill is a bust with the public, with 55 percent opposing and only 42 percent supporting it:

[T]wice as many Americans [say] they are strongly opposed (38 percent) than strongly supportive (18 percent). Partisan polarization on this issue is unsurprising, given the explicit Republican sponsorship of a bill to repeal and replace the highest profile achievement of the outgoing Democratic president. Nearly nine out of ten Democrats (88 percent) say they oppose the Republican replacement plan, and nearly as many Republicans (84 percent) favor it.

Yet those with less partisan attachment have largely turned against the bill. Americans who initially identify as independent oppose the Republican health care bill by a large margin (40 percent support, 59 percent oppose). Independents who lean to neither party are against it by an even larger margin (32 percent support, 61 percent oppose).

Because “the share of Democrats who say they strongly oppose the bill (68 percent) far exceeds the proportion of Republicans who strongly support it (46 percent)” it’s turned into a rallying cry for Democrats. Republicans might take another look at Obamacare’s support. “Nearly two-thirds of Americans prefer to let the ACA stand (17 percent) or ‘change it so it does more’ (47 percent), while just a third prefer to repeal it completely (27 percent) or ‘change it so it does less’ (6 percent).” Americans, it seems, don’t buy the idea that it is “failing” or in a “death spiral.” It might not please conservatives but one solution might be to expand Obamacare (“about a third (32 percent) of those who currently support the Republican bill also say they prefer to change the ACA so that it ‘does more'”).

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So long as Americans see Trumpcare as less generous, more likely to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor and less protective of the sickest, poorest Americans, no amount of salesmanship will help. Unfortunately, Trump reportedly is going in the opposite direction, trying to win over the hard-line conservatives. He might speed up the rollback of Medicaid, for example. That might gain him some votes in the Freedom Caucus but it will rile up moderates and guarantee its defeat in the Senate. Moreover, choosing to side with 33 percent (who want total repeal or a bill that does less) rather than 64 percent (who want to keep it or make it do more) defies political sense.

After looking at his and the bill’s poll numbers, Trump will need to decide which road to take. He could let the AHCA die in the House and blame Democrats and/or Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Alternatively, he could step in to push the bill to the right, rallying his base but breaking more of his populist promises and ensuring defeat of his signature issue in the Senate. Then again, he could scrap the bill and go full-on populist (e.g., expand Medicaid, increase subsidies, expand rural health care, keep taxes on the rich) to get moderate Republicans and Democrats, in essence daring Republicans to oppose him.