After six weeks, President Barack Obamas health care program continues to be controversial with the American public, according to two polls released on Tuesday.
Rasmussen Reports unveiled a poll on Tuesday which found that most Americans view the health care law as bad for the country and want to repeal it. The poll found just 35 percent of likely U.S. voters believe the trouble-plagued health care law is good for America, while 55 percent consider it bad for the country.
The same percentage -- 55 percent -- at least somewhat favors repealing the law entirely, while 41 percent are opposed.
Since the roll-out of the law on Oct. 1, websites for the national and state government exchanges to sell health insurance have been plagued by malfunctions and website errors. The law has also come under considerable criticism after news reports continue to suggest millions of Americans may be forced to change their current health insurance policies and pay more for them as a result of the new law.
The Rasmussen survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted Nov. 9-10 and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.
Later in the day, Quinnipiac University released a poll which found voters against the health care law and Obama himself. In the Quinnipiac poll, only 19 percent of those surveyed believe their health care will improve due to Obamas health-care law while 43 percent think it will get worse and 33 percent believe it will remain the same.
The poll finds only 39 percent approve of the law while 55 percent oppose it. Almost three-quarters of those surveyed -- 73 percent -- want to delay the individual mandate for Americans who dont have health care by the end of March while only 20 percent want to keep it.
Americans are also divided on Obamas promise that Americans could keep their current health care under the new law, with 46 percent thinking he "knowingly deceived" the country while 47 percent say he did not.
"President Obama's misstatement, 'If you like your health plan, you can keep it,' left a bad taste with a lot of people, said Tim Malloy, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute on Tuesday. Nearly half of the voters, 46 percent, think he knowingly deceived them.
The poll of 2,545 registered voters across the nation was taken from Nov. 6-11 and had a margin of error of +/- 1.9 percent.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com. Reach Tampa-based reporter Allison Nielsen at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter at @AllisonNielsen.
