Surprising support for health law

For Republicans, nothing captures what they loathe about Barack Obama's presidency more perfectly than Obamacare: It's big government run amok and an existential threat to American liberty. But it turns out that Republicans like what's actually in the law.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll taken June 19-23 found that Obamacare remains deeply unpopular: 56 percent of Americans oppose the law, while only 44 percent favor it. But the poll also found that strong majorities favor the law's individual provisions — including solid majorities of Republicans.

I asked Ipsos for a partisan breakdown of the data. Some key points:

Eighty percent of Republicans favor "creating an insurance pool where small businesses and uninsured have access to insurance exchanges to take advantage of large group pricing benefits." Seventy-five percent of respondents who described themselves as independents agreed.

Fifty-seven percent of Republicans support "providing subsidies on a sliding scale to aid individuals and families who cannot afford health insurance." The same sentiment is shared by 67 percent of independents.

Fifty-four percent of Republicans favor "requiring companies with more than 50 employees to provide insurance for their employees." That idea is backed by 75 percent of independents.

Fifty-two percent of Republicans favor "allowing children to stay on parents' insurance until age 26." Sixty-nine percent of independents agree.

Seventy-eight percent of Republicans support "banning insurance companies from denying coverage for preexisting conditions"; 86 percent of Republicans favor "banning insurance companies from canceling policies because a person becomes ill." Those positions are backed by 82 percent and 87 percent of independents, respectively.

One provision of the law that isn't backed by a majority of Republicans is "expanding Medicaid to families with incomes less than $30,000 per year."

"Most Republicans want to have good health coverage," Ipsos research director Chris Jackson told me. "They just don't necessarily like what it is Obama is doing."

The bottom line: A majority of Republicans and independents favor regulation of the health insurance system. But the health-care law has become so defined by the individual mandate — not to mention the president himself — that public sentiments about the actual reforms have been drowned out. It's another sign of the conservative messaging triumph in this fight and of Democrats' failure to make the case for the law.

The data also suggest that if the law is struck down today, Democrats might be able to salvage at least something from the wreckage by refocusing the debate on the individual reforms they have been championing — and what, if anything, Republicans would replace them with.