Can I Still Get Health Care? Obamacare Coverage For People With Pre-Existing Conditions Has Widespread Support

House Republicans revealed their plans this week to ditch a key feature of the Affordable Care Act requiring that all Americans obtain some form of health insurance or face a tax penalty. But a new survey shows nearly half of the country supports such a requirement, according to a CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday morning.

Half of the 1,025 people surveyed between Thursday and Saturday wanted the requirement that they buy health insurance scrapped, while 48 percent hoped to keep it and 1 percent held no opinion. The split was far less even when respondents were questioned on whether they favored or opposed protecting people with pre-existing conditions from skyrocketing prices, a measure of the 2010 health law. A full 87 percent of those surveyed approved of the provision, compared to 12 percent who didn’t. In their draft health care plan, Republicans in the House kept the protection for people with pre-existing conditions intact.

The poll also found that more than three in five opposed a drop in federal funding for Medicaid, compared to 37 percent who favored a cut. The new House bill would permit states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare to maintain that expansion until 2020, after which those funds will have be drawn down, and individual funding may be capped.

The poll carried a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points and relied on both mobile and landline phones.

As of late January, 45 percent of respondents to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll saw Obamacare as “a good idea,” the largest percentage since the two news organizations began posing the question nearly eight years earlier. Half of respondents said that had little to no confidence in Republican proposals to repeal the law, while 41 percent saw the ACA as “a bad idea.” A survey from the Pew Research Center indicated even higher support for the law, with an approval rate of 54 percent and a 43 percent disapproval.