Dive Brief:
- According to Johns Hopkins University sociologists Stephen L. Morgan and Minhyoung Kang, the ACA's 2010 passage was followed by a significant drop in support for healthcare spending across the political spectrum.
- The resarchers say in their Sociological Sciences paper the percentage of Americans who say the U.S. spends "too little" on healthcare decreased in the years after the ACA's passage: 24 percentage points among Republicans, 16 among Independents and 12 among Democrats.
- The researchers present theories as to why support for healthcare spending plunged after the passage of the law.
Dive Insight:
The reason for the decreased support in healthcare spending may be Americans typically lean in the opposite direction of policy, the researchers say.
They suggest the campaigns against the ACA took a toll and the ACA's passage may have resulted in a conservative reaction.
"Our results suggest that policy preferences among voters and survey respondents can be less partisan and more uniform when attention is focused on direction of change," the authors write.
While there could be another reason for the drop, the authors note the decrease in support for healthcare spending is specific and outstrips the decreases in support for other issues.
"Democrats won big in passing healthcare reform, but the public's appetite for more ambitious action has shrunk," says the Washington Post.