Widespread Support for Early Provisions in Health Reform

For years, Congressional Republicans have refused to hold insurance companies accountable while Americans lost coverage, watched their premiums increase and were denied care. Democrats, working with President Obama, have passed health insurance reform to provide Americans greater access to affordable coverage, bring down overall health care costs, help small businesses, and hold insurance companies accountable.

A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll released today affirms that a large majority of Americans support the provisions in the health insurance reform law that will take effect this year. While there remains some confusion about the new law, there is no question that support for many of the law's critical provisions is widespread and bipartisan--with at least two-thirds of Republicans and Independents holding favorable views. From the poll:

Nearly 9 in 10 Americans favor providing tax credits to small businesses that want to provide coverage for their workers

Roughly 8 in 10 Americans have favorable views of provisions that would:

offer access to basic preventive care with no copayments

provide financial help to seniors who hit the gap in Medicare drug coverage known as the "donut hole"

end insurance companies' practice of dropping coverage if a person has a major health problem

74% are in favor of allowing young adults to stay on their parents' insurance plans until their 26th birthday

71% approve of prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage to children based on pre-existing medical conditions

Learn more about the provisions that take effect this year»