Poll: Support for ObamaCare steady

Support for the Affordable Care Act has remained steady, even as a range of technical issues have torpedoed the ObamaCare website launch and made it difficult for consumers to apply on the federal exchanges.

{mosads}According to a survey released Friday from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 44 percent have an unfavorable view of the law, against 38 percent favorable. That’s a slight decrease from September, when 43 percent had an unfavorable view against 39 percent favorable.

HealthCare.gov went live on Oct. 1, but the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says it doesn’t expect the site to be running smoothly for most users until Nov. 30. According to the poll, 48 percent say the government has done a poor job with the rollout, and 32 percent rate the performance as “only fair.”

Still, the news could be much worse for Democrats. The survey found the public paid far more attention to last month’s government shutdown, with 44 percent saying they followed that political battle very closely, against only 22 percent who say the same about the website problems.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) released documents late Thursday that show there were only a trickle of successful enrollees in the opening days of the federal exchange, but Kaiser found that the administration’s push to get the word out about ObamaCare has been picking up steam.

Last month, only 43 percent said they had seen a commercial for the law. That number shoots up to 59 percent in October.

The Kaiser poll of 1,513 adults was conducted between Oct. 17 and Oct. 23 and has a 3-percentage-point margin of error.