Health Care Law Still Unpopular With 56% of Americans, Poll Finds

Four and a half months after President Obama signed a sweeping health-care-reform bill into law, the overhaul remains unpopular with a majority of Americans, a new CNN Opinion Research survey suggests.

The poll, released Friday, shows 56 percent oppose the health law, a small improvement from the 59 percent who said they were against it around the time of its passage in late March. Forty percent said they favor the law, compared to 39 percent in March. The survey of 1,009 adults -- 935 of them registered voters -- was conducted during the first and second weeks of August and has a 3 percent margin of error, CNN said.

Despite the negative approval rating, some features of the health care law are popular with the public. Nearly three-fifths endorse a provision that prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage for people who become seriously ill. And 58 percent approve of language barring insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. The law will not take full effect until 2014, so the public perception is likely to evolve.

The poll also took the public temperature on taxes, finding that 82 percent want to keep some or all of the George W. Bush tax cuts that are due to expire later this year unless Congress renews them. Just over 50 percent said the tax reductions should stay on for families making less than $250,000 a year -- and end for those making more than that. Another 31 percent agreed with the proposition that "tax cuts should continue for all Americans regardless of how much money they make." And 18 percent said taxes should go back up for all -- to the level before the Bush reductions.