A majority of Nevadans think the House Republican health care bill is a bad idea, with nearly one in five Republicans opposed to the measure, according to a recent poll conducted for the American Medical Association.

Only a third of Nevada Republicans think the House bill, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), is a good idea, mirroring national polling showing voters’ skepticism amid congressional Republicans’ attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Senate could vote as soon as today on the first procedural vote to move forward their version of the health care bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), released last Thursday.

The poll, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, a GOP firm, sampled 500 registered Nevada voters between June 15 and 19 and has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

Twelve percent of Republicans support passing the House legislation as it is, 27 percent favor making minor changes, 35 percent want major changes and 7 percent support keeping the Affordable Care Act in place. Compare that to the 59 percent of Democrats who support keeping the ACA, while 16 percent would support major changes to the AHCA, 19 percent would support minor changes and 4 percent support the bill as is. Nevada’s nonpartisan voters by and large either support keeping the ACA (30 percent) or making major changes to the AHCA (30 percent.)

But the ACA doesn’t exactly enjoy broad support from voters either. Only 45 percent believe the ACA is a good idea, with 37 percent thinking it’s a bad idea and 16 percent with no opinion either way. Republicans are more inclined to think it’s a bad idea (68 percent) and Democrats to think it’s a good idea (78 percent).

Nevada’s Republican Sen. Dean Heller said Friday that he supports making changes to the Affordable Care Act but that the Senate’s proposed health care bill is not the way to do it. Republicans can only afford to lose two members from their own party for the bill to pass.

"It's not the answer, it's simply not the answer," Heller said. "In this form, I will not support it."

The poll also demonstrated significant support for the state’s Medicaid program, which Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval expanded under the Affordable Care Act. The expansion, which took effect in January 2014, led to 276,000 additional Nevadans being covered by the program and is slated to be entirely repealed under both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents view the Medicaid program favorably, 20 percent neutral and 14 percent unfavorably. A plurality of voters support keeping Medicaid funding levels where they are now (43 percent), while 33 percent want to increase funding levels and only 10 percent want to decrease them. Six in 10 people said that either they, someone in their household or someone they know is covered by Medicaid.

Asked about various possible changes to the ACA, 79 percent of respondents supported allowing people to purchase health insurance across state lines and 50 percent supported the federal government providing funding to states to cover people with pre-existing conditions through high-risk insurance pools. Nevadans were also more likely to support than oppose providing low-income people dropped from Medicaid with money from the federal government to purchase a private insurance plan and changing Medicaid to a block grant program, which would cut funding to states.

A majority of respondents opposed eliminating the federal funding Nevada receives annually to pay for Medicaid and getting rid of the individual insurance mandate from the ACA. A plurality of respondents opposed eliminating programs already in place including federal health assistance to low-income people, the requirement that all health insurance plans must provide a certain set of essential health benefits and new taxes on the wealthy. They also opposed cutting funding to states that opted into Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, such as Nevada.

The American Medical Association, which opposes the Senate’s proposed health care bill, also conducted polls in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia. The polls largely showed broad support for the Medicaid program and keeping Medicaid expansion in place and an overall lack of support for the House health care bill.

Photo courtesy of Kent Kawashima under Creative Commons.