The accumulated hits of the past few months have had a damaging effect on President Obama’s approval rating, as a new Quinnipiac poll shows just 39 percent of voters approve of how he is handling his job, an all-time low for his presidency.
In addition, the accusations that the president lied to the American public, when he repeatedly said that under Obamacare people would be able to keep their healthcare plans if they like them, have also taken their toll, with a majority of Americans for the first time saying the president is not honest and trustworthy.
While just 39 percent of voters say they approve of how he is handling his job, 54 percent say they disapprove.
As for their feelings about the Affordable Care Act, the president’s signature legislation, only 19 percent believe the quality of their health care will improve in the next year, while 43 percent say it will get worse and 33 percent say the controversial law won’t affect their health care, according to Quinnipiac. This is a drop from a Gallup poll last month, which had 25 percent saying it will improve, 34 percent saying it would make things worse and 36 saying it would not make a big difference.
After the fiasco over whether people would be able to keep their plans, now 52 percent of voters say the president is not honest and trustworthy, compared to 44 percent who say he is—the first time a majority has had the negative view.
Asked if the president knowingly deceived Americans with his promise that they would be able to keep plans that they like, 46 percent of voters said they believe he made the statement on purpose, while 47 percent disagreed.
“President Obama’s misstatement, ‘If you like your health plan, you can keep it,’ left a bad taste with a lot of people,” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement.
In actuality, the president acknowledged several times over the past three years that people who had inadequate plans would have to upgrade under the health care law.
The one area where Obama had a positive rating was for how he handles terrorism, which was 52 percent approval and 42 disapproval. But he got negative ratings on foreign policy, immigration, the federal budget, and the economy. Overall, a majority of voters, 53 percent, say the Obama administration has not been competent in managing the U.S. government.
For the survey, Quinnipiac questioned 2,545 registered voters nationwide by telephone from Nov. 6-11. The poll has a sampling error of plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.
