A new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and The Washington Post shows that the Supreme Court hearings last week on the Affordable Care Act damaged the opinion people have of both the court and the law.
While 63 percent of the 1,000 respondents said the hearings did not affect their opinion of the health reform law, 23 percent said they now have a less favorable opinion of the law as a result of the arguments made before the court last week. Only 7 percent reported they now had a more favorable view of the law.
Not surprisingly, the split along party lines of those whose opinions had changed was stark. Among registered Republicans, 35 percent said they now viewed health reform in a less favorable light than before the hearings, compared with only 13 percent of Democrats. 27 percent of Independent voters also reported a less favorable opinion of the healthcare law. Only 3 percent of Republicans and 6 percent of Independents reported a more favorable opinion of the law as a result of the Supreme Court arguments, while 12 percent of Democrats said that they now held a more favorable view of the ACA.
The public's opinion of the Supreme Court itself also took a bit of a hit, as a result of the intense interest in the fate of the healthcare law, though the pattern of the response among Democrats and Republicans was reversed.
Sixty-eight percent of all respondents said their opinion of the court hadn't changed, but 21 percent now have a less favorable view of the court as a result of last week's hearings. Democrat's were more than twice as likely to have a diminished view of the court, with 32 percent reporting they now have a less favorable opinion compared to 14 percent of Republicans and 16 percent of Independents.