Pollster says voters ‘just don’t like this health care thing’
It could take years for a court of law to decide whether the federal government's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act comports with the U.S. Constitution.
The court of public opinion, however, has already rendered a verdict.
A plurality of Nevada voters say they agree with the suggestion the state should seek to block implementation of the act, even though legal scholars are divided on whether such a move has legal merit.
A survey of Nevadans by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows 50 percent of likely voters support and 40 percent oppose having Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto file a lawsuit in federal court to block the act. Ten percent were undecided.
Masto has already declined to press forward with a lawsuit, saying it would be futile from a legal perspective and a waste of taxpayer money. The decision prompted Gov. Jim Gibbons to hire the Las Vegas law firm of Hutchison & Steffen to take the case, which lead attorney Mark Hutchison agreed to do for free.
Voters' opinions on the lawsuit tracks closely with their opinions about the health reform law in general, said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon.
That suggests respondents who are asked about the lawsuit aren't weighing the legal merits before giving an answer. Rather, they're supporting the lawsuit because they simply don't like the law and opposing the lawsuit if they like the law.
"How many constitutional legal scholars are there in the electorate in Nevada," Coker said of the 2 percent difference in the rate of opposition to the health bill and support for a lawsuit. "They just don't like this health care thing and whatever they can do to stop it they are all for it."
Edie Cartwright, a spokeswoman for Masto, said poll data won't change the way the attorney general views the merits of the case.
"We certainly appreciate their comments," Cartwright said of the public's input. "But the issue is legal and that is the way she looks at it."
The Mason-Dixon poll surveyed 625 likely voters Monday through Wednesday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.
