Five-Thirty-Eight Presents Three Excellent Articles on ACA/AHCA Public Opinion

Five-Thirty-Eight, which covers politics, sports, and culture through a statistical/analytic lens, has published three articles in recent days on public opinion toward the American Health Care Act (AHCA)*, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan's alternative to former President Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA).

• Harry Enten writes about how, "The AHCA is much more disliked than the ACA and [Bill and Hillary] Clinton’s health care reform bill [in 1993-94] were when they were first introduced" and "may haunt the GOP" in future elections.
• Perry Bacon, Jr., argues that the fervor over Obamacare and its possible repeal/replacement by the Republicans is "disproportionate" to the substantive effects of such a policy change, as "less than a tenth of all Americans" receive health care coverage through the ACA. Rather, as Bacon contends, "the Obamacare debate is really about much more than health care. In many ways, the two parties... are also debating fundamental questions about the role of government, work, income redistribution, race, class and Barack Obama."
• Nate Silver estimates support for the AHCA in each of the nation's 435 congressional districts and concludes that "there are about 80 districts... where supporters of the bill are in the plurality [i.e., supporters outnumber opponents, but supporters don't necessarily reach 51%]. But I estimate that there are only three of them — Alabama’s 4th, Kentucky’s 5th and Texas’s 13th — where supporters of the bill constitute an outright majority."

In addition, Slate discusses a Quinnipiac poll showing only a microscopic 13% of women support the AHCA (with men not much higher at 22%).

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*I've started pronouncing the AHCA acronym as "Ock-ah." You may wish to follow suit.