Has Obamacare Helped or Hurt You and Your Family? More Americans Say It’s Hurt.

Most Americans, about 54
percent, don’t think Obamacare has had much of an effect on
themselves or their families one way or another. But amongst those
who do, far more believe the effect is negative than positive,
according to a
new Gallup poll.

The survey finds that 27 percent of Americans believe the law
has hurt them. That figure has grown from 19 percent since the
beginning of the year, when the law’s major coverage expansion
provisions kicked in. As the law takes hold, in other words, people
find themselves negatively affected by it.

Now, it’s also true that the number of people who say they have
been helped by the law has grown this year, from 10 percent to 16
percent. But those survey numbers suggest where the greater impact
is, and why the law’s overall poll numbers continue to be negative,
with 41 percent approving of the law and 53 percent disapproving,
according to Gallup.

You can see the kind of impact the law is having just by looking
at the news. Walmart is dropping health plans for about 30,000
part-time workers, about 5 percent of its workforce,
according to the Associated Press. Target, Home Depot, and
other big retailers have made similar moves. The retail giant isn’t
specifically citing Obamacare as the cause. But it’s almost
certainly a factor. As the AP notes:

The announcement comes after Wal-Mart said far more U.S.
employees and their families are enrolling in its health care plans
than it had expected following rollout of the Affordable Care Act,
which requires big companies to offer coverage to employees working
30 hours or more a week or face a penalty.

Combine this with so many other recent reports about the
law—reports noting, among other things, that tens or hundreds of
thousands more plans will be
cancelled this year, that many of the plans offered through the
law rely on
narrow provider networks, that its various
waivers and
tax provisions are expected to be enormously complicated (at
best) for many families over the coming year, that
emergency room usage is up in states that participate in the
law’s Medicaid expansion, that there are
security flaws in the exchange technology (which
still isn’t finished)—and it’s not hard to see why, even with
the significant expansion of health coverage under the law, more
people think the law has hurt them than helped, why the law’s
overall poll numbers remain low, and why, even
amongst Democratic politicians, ostensibly the law’s political
base, there is a clear wariness about voicing support for the
law.