Americans, for the first time in a Rasmussen poll since Congress approved the abortion-funding ObamaCare bill earlier this year, say they believe it will be repealed.
For the first time since Democrats in Congress passed the controversial government-run health care measure in March, a majority of U.S. voters believe the measure is likely to be repealed. While Americans have strongly opposed the legislation, they didn’t think it would be reversed, until now.
The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey released today finds 52 percent think it is at least somewhat likely that the health care law will be overturned. Thirty-three percent view repeal as unlikely. Those figures include 16 percent who say it is very likely and 5 percent who say it is very unlikely.
“The number who view repeal as likely is up from 47% last month and from 38% in early April. Belief that the plan is likely to be repealed has been hovering in the 40% range in surveys since April but began to rise in late October,” the polling firm noted.
The new survey shows 55 percent of voters now favor repeal of the health care law, including 40% who strongly favor it. Forty-one percent are opposed to repeal, with 31% saying they are strongly opposed. Support for repeal has ranged from 50% to 63% in weekly tracking since the bill became law in late March.
Last week, a federal judge found a key provision in the law to be unconstitutional as U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled in the lawsuit Virginia filed against ObamaCare was unconstitutional with him saying the individual mandate is unconstitutional.
The ruling makes the district court the first federal court in the nation to strike down a portion of the ObamaCare law and it goes against rulings other courts have issued striking down other lawsuits.
The key issue in the complaint the state of Virginia filed is that the individual mandate in the law, requiring Americans to purchase health insurance (which may very well fund abortions) is unconstitutional and a violation of the power Congress has to regulate interstate commerce.
Judge Hudson issued a 42-page opinion writing that the individual mandate exceeds Congress’ authority, saying it is “neither within the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution.”
Also last week, a federal judge in Florida held a hearing on the main lawsuit Florida and about 20 states filed making some of the same arguments as the Virginia case.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson heard from attorneys general who told him the law is an unconstitutional expansion of the federal government’s powers and a request for him to issue a summary judgment ruling declaring ObamaCare unconstitutional and throwing out the law without a full trial.
“The act would leave more constitutional damage in its wake than any other statute in our history,” David Rivkin, an attorney for the states, told Vinson.
President Barack Obama’s administration countered that Americans should not be allowed to opt out of ObamaCare because every American requires medical care. They also claim the states do not have standing to file a lawsuit against ObamaCare and want the lawsuit thrown out and the case dismissed.
Vinson said he would rule later but did not provide a timetable for a ruling that is expected no earlier than mid-January.
When Congress passed the government-run health care bill, it did so without any limits on abortion funding and language mandating taxpayer financing of abortion in certain circumstances.
Obama eventually issued a controversial executive order supposedly taking the abortion funding issue off the table.
However, virtually every pro-life group said it would not mitigate the abortion funding because it doesn’t have the effect of law, could be reversed in the future, and because it didn’t tackle much of the abortion funding in the bill. The Obama administration could also ignore the order and not put it in place when the health care law goes into effect.
Under the new health care law, states will be in charge of their own health care exchanges that are available for individuals and small businesses.
The exchange doesn’t go into effect until 2014 and states are filing lawsuits seeking to stop the pro-abortion health care bill in its other pro-abortion provisions entirety, but states are moving now to exercise their right to opt out of some of the abortion funding.
