Racial and Religious Divides on Health Care Reform

The Supreme Court’s decision to leave President Obama’s health care reform legislation mostly intact swings the conversation back toward the presidential race, where Obama can claim an undisputed victory that will energize his supporters. But Romney may also benefit, because the ruling could galvanize two powerful, overlapping groups in the GOP base: members of the Tea Party and white non-Hispanic evangelical Protestants. In the reactions to the ruling, the powerful way that racial identity shapes attitudes toward the health care law, as well as how this may influence the law’s impact in the -residential race, has been largely overlooked. Comparisons between these key supporters of Romney, which are overwhelmingly white, and black Americans, who overwhelmingly support Obama, paint a stark picture of a racially divided America on this issue.

Just days before the Supreme Court’s decision on the health care reform law was handed down, Public Religion Research Institute’s June Religion & Politics Tracking Survey found that the public as a whole is fairly divided about the law: a plurality (43 percent) of Americans said that they opposed the Supreme Court overturning the health care law, 35 percent said they were in favor, and around 1-in-5 (21 percent) offered no opinion. But seen through the lens of race, there are two polarized consensuses.
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