Poll: ObamaCare more popular than Obama

ObamaCare is currently more popular than the president for whom it’s named, a new bipartisan poll suggests.

Forty-seven percent now support the law and 51 percent oppose it, according to a survey NPR released Thursday. 

President Obama’s approval rating stands at 46 percent and just over half disapprove, the poll found.

The survey was conducted for NPR by Democrat Stan Greenberg of Democracy Corps and Republican Whit Ayres of Resurgent Republic.

Greenberg said Obama’s job performance rating has improved.

{mosads}”The president’s approval number of 46 percent is not a bad number, and if in fact it continues to edge up, you’re not talking about the same kind of numbers when you had 39 percent or 42 percent approval. So the trend of all of those stuff is moving slowly,” Greenberg told NPR. “And I think this turning point of the Affordable Care Act will have an impact on his performance and also the energy of Democrats.”

The poll found the number of people who strongly oppose ObamaCare is 12 percentage points higher than those who strongly support the law.

Just under 10 percent, meanwhile, said they oppose the healthcare law because it hasn’t gone far enough.

The poll comes just days after the Obama administration celebrated its effort to enroll 7.1 million people in its health insurance exchanges by March 31, when the open enrollment period for 2014 closed.

On the generic 2014 ballot, Democrats are slightly ahead of Republicans, 44 to 43 percent, but the lead might not amount to much. Democrats would likely need a double-digit lead in order to pick up seats.

The poll of 950 voters from 2012 and 840 likely 2014 voters was conducted March 19 to 23, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.18 percentage points.