More voters think the bill will make the nation’s health care system worse (41 percent) than believe will make it better (29 percent). | Getty Poll: Fewer than 4-in-10 voters back GOP health bill

Just 38 percent of voters approve of the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted before Senate leaders pulled the latest version of their bill in an effort to win over more GOP votes.

That's fewer than the 45 percent who disapprove of the Republican health care bill. Another 17 percent say they don’t know or have no opinion of the bill.


Six in 10 Republican voters approve of the bill, but a quarter of members of President Donald Trump's party disapprove. The numbers among Democrats are a mirror image: Twenty-five percent approve, and 64 percent disapprove. But independents tilt against the measure: Only 30 percent approve, and 43 percent disapprove.

The intensity gap is on the side of the bill’s opponents: Thirty-one percent of voters overall “strongly” disapprove of the bill, roughly double the 16 percent who “strongly” approve.

The results are similar to voters’ views of the health care bill that recently passed the House — though the wording of the poll question was changed in this new survey to reflect the Senate’s consideration of its own measure.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the chamber would not take up the bill this week as previously planned. The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted June 22-24 — prior to both the Kentucky senator’s Tuesday announcement and the release on Monday of the Congressional Budget Office’s report on the bill’s effects.

Other measures in the poll also point to the bill’s challenges. More voters think the bill will make the nation’s health care system worse (41 percent) than believe will make it better (29 percent). More think it will increase costs for their families (42 percent) than think it will decrease those costs (21 percent). Thirty-eight percent think the bill will hurt the quality of health care, and only 26 percent think quality would be improved.

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Though the poll was conducted before the CBO released its projection that 22 million fewer Americans would have health insurance if the Senate bill became law, the report confirms voters’ beliefs: Forty-six percent say they expect the bill would decrease the number of Americans with health insurance, while only 21 percent believe more people would be insured.

As Senate Republicans attempt to recalibrate the bill to rein in moderate and conservative defectors, voters are divided on the scope of the effort. Thirty-eight percent say the legislation goes too far in making changes to the health care system, and another 23 percent say it doesn’t go far enough.

It's a split that exists within the GOP, as well.

"The tension between moderate Republicans and hard-liners that is playing out in the Senate is mirrored in the polling," said Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult co-founder and chief research officer. "While 31 percent of Republican voters think the Senate bill doesn't go far enough in making changes to the health care system, 18 percent thinks it goes too far."

Republicans in both chambers have focused on advancing health care legislation solely with votes in their own conferences, but the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows more voters trust Democrats to handle the issue. Forty-six percent of voters trust Democrats in Congress more to handle health care, while only a third trust Republicans more.

President Donald Trump remains far more popular with GOP voters than the Republican health care bill: 80 percent of Republicans approve of the job Trump is doing. But Trump’s overall approval rating is still underwater: 45 percent of voters approve of his job performance, and 51 percent disapprove.

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll surveyed 1,994 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents — Toplines: http://politi.co/2sO62tj | Crosstabs: http://politi.co/2rYF3II