Two-Thirds of Americans Want ObamaCare Gutted by Court; WashPost Hypes Half Who Say 'Partisan' Politics Will Color Ruling

A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that 2/3rds of Americans want at least a part of the ObamaCare overhaul tossed by the Supreme Court when it decides HHS v. Florida in June. Thirty-eight percent of respondents in the poll want the entire law thrown out while 29 percent say just a part of it being thrown out would suffice.

Yet rather than lead with these numbers in their story today, Washington Post reporters Robert Barnes and Scott Clement chose a question from the April 5-8 poll that shows 50 percent of Americans think the Court "will rule on the health-care reform case mainly on the basis... of their partisan political views."

"More Americans think Supreme Court justices will be acting mainly on their partisan political views than on a neutral reading of the law when they decide the constitutionality of President Obama's health-care law," Barnes and Clement noted in the lead paragraph of their April 11 page A2 story headlined, "Half say ruling on health care will be partisan."*

But "The poll shows little enthusiasm for the Obama administration's position that the law, passed by the Democratic Congress in 2010, should be upheld in full," the Post scribes noted two paragraphs later. "Only a quarter of Americans choose that as the desired outcome."

What's more, "Only 39 percent of Americans support the health-care overhaul in general, the lowest percentage since the Post-ABC poll began asking the question," Barnes and Clement disclosed in the 5th paragraph in their 10-paragraph story.

With support for ObamaCare at its nadir, why isn't that statistic the lede? Perhaps because the Post is doing its part to push the spin of liberal Democrats and the Obama administration that the Court striking down the ObamaCare health care purchase mandate is politically-inspired judicial activism.

What's more, the Post/ABC poll arguably under sampled Republican voters as the partisan breakdown was 34 percent Democratic, 23 percent Republican, and 34 percent independent, with five percent listing "other" and 3 percent giving no opinion. That compares to a 39 percent Democratic, 32 percent Republican, 29 percent independent split in the 2008 presidential exit polls.

As such, the number of Americans who believe the Court will be influenced by politics may be inflated by the poll and the number of Americans who oppose ObamaCare may even be underestimated by the poll, meaning that the poll may understate bad news for Obama on the issue of health care this November.

*The online version's headline is different: "Poll: More Americans expect Supreme Court’s health-care decision to be political"