Determinants of State Level Support for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

What accounts for variance in public opinion support for the PPACA? The political science (and social science in general) literature is relatively sparse on this question. This paper suggests that state level support for the PPACA has a largely political, rather than economic, motivation. Multivariate models are estimated, with support measured at the state level using 2010 data from Gallup; explanatory variables (per capita where necessary) include uninsured percentage, change in uninsured, unemployment, Medicaid recipients, state GDP, poverty rate, percents African- American and Latino, and the state PVI. A bivariate relationship is counter-intuitive; as the rate of uninsured in a state increased, so does opposition to the PPACA. Multivariate models estimate a more nuanced picture, with partisanship, religiosity, and race being consistent significant predictors of state level support for the PPACA across three models. In other words, judgment of the PPACA as policy is mediated by pre-existing partisan attributes rather than economic indicators.