Poll: Majority want new effort if court overturns health law

Jun 21 2012

A new Associated Press-GfK poll found that Americans want Congress and the president to work on new legislation to overhaul the health care system if the high court rules that the 2010 health law is unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the lead attorney for the states challenging the law said it's difficult to predict what the court will do.

The Associated Press: Poll: Vast Support For New Health Care Effort
Americans overwhelmingly want the president and Congress to get to work on a new bill to change the health care system if the Supreme Court strikes down President Barack Obama's 2010 overhaul as unconstitutional, a new poll finds. A new health care bill doesn't seem to be in either party's plans on the verge of the high court's verdict on the law aimed at extending health insurance to more than 30 million Americans who now lack coverage (Sherman, 6/20).

Politico: Fix Health Care After Supreme Court Ruling, Poll Says
If the Supreme Court strikes down President Barack Obama's signature health care reform law, 77 percent of Americans want the president and Congress to work on new legislation overhauling the system, according to a new AP-GfK poll on Wednesday. Only 19 percent of Americans want lawmakers to leave health care the way it is (Robillard, 6/20).

Politico Pro: Clement: SCOTUS Ruling Tough To Predict
Paul Clement, the lead attorney for the states challenging the health care law, said he doesn't like to draw conclusions about how the Supreme Court will rule in the highly anticipated Supreme Court health care case, particularly given the unusual length and format of the oral arguments. "In the Supreme Court, the way that it was structured doesn't allow you to draw conclusions the way that you might have been able to draw conclusions if it had been sort of a four hour free-for-all," he said at a Supreme Court panel discussion hosted by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy on Tuesday (Smith, 6/19).

Politico: Health Care Ruling: What To Expect
No matter what the Supreme Court finally rules on the health law, tens of millions of Americans are not going to like it. And judging from the wildly contradictory polls and expectations of the past few years -; in which people often declare how much they detest the health law and at the same time say how much they like what's in it -; many won't understand the ruling, either (Kenen, 6/19).

Also in the news, the White House and GOP congressional leaders hint at their preparations for the outcome -

The Wall Street Journal: Band-Aids For The Health Law
White House officials say they are confident the Supreme Court will uphold the health-care law, but they also are preparing for a range of outcomes, including pressing ahead with what remains of the law if the court strikes down only part of it (Meckler and Radnofsky, 6/19).

The Associated Press: McConnell: Time To 'Start Over' On Health Care
The top-ranking Republican in the Senate calls the Obama health care law the first step in "Europeanizing America" and says Congress should "start over" if the system is ruled invalid by the Supreme Court. Kentucky's Sen. Mitch McConnell says Republicans believe Americans want to "repeal the whole thing" (6/19).

Bloomberg: Boehner Says House to Seek Repeal of Health-Care Law
House Speaker John Boehner said the Republican-led chamber will move to repeal President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul law if the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't strike it down….Boehner didn't say when the House would act. He said it would take a "step-by-step" approach to rewrite the health-care law to reduce costs and ensure that the American people go to the doctor of their choice (Tiron, 6/19).