Latinos Support Obamacare: What Does It Mean For GOP?

Latinos in the US are among the biggest backers of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's healthcare law, according to the LA Times. In a March poll, 48 percent of Latino respondents said they had a favorable view of Obamacare, compared to 30 percent of white respondents. As a group, Latinos have the highest uninsured rates of any other racial or ethnic group in the US. Close to 30 percent of Latino citizens and permanent legal residents do not have health insurance, compared to 11 percent of whites and 17 percent of blacks.

In the LA Times article, Alexandra Franceschi, the spokeswoman of the Republican National Committee, said that Latinos would eventually recognize that the law raises costs and burdens businesses, and that Republicans would "do a better job explaining why this law is negatively affecting all Americans, including the Hispanic community".

Republicans are seeking to court Latino voters as this group's population continues to expand in the US. In the 2012 presidential election, Hispanic voters went overwhelmingly for President Obama -- 71 percent to Mitt Romney's 27 percent. The Republican Party has shown few signs of changing track on its continued attacks on healthcare.

The Times reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said recently in a speech that Obamacare "needs to be pulled out by its roots." And another high-profile Senator, Marco Rubio of Florida, attacked it in his response to the president's February State of the Union speech.

Some 19 percent of Hispanics have an unfavorable view of the healthcare program (while 32 percent said they didn't know or refused to answer). In comparison, 48 percent of whites viewed it unfavorably. The 112th Congress tried at least 33 times to repeal Obamacare, according to the website HispanicBusiness.com, and Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., introduced another anti-Obamacare bill in early 2013.

Surveys indicate that Latino voters tend to support a larger role for government. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that nearly half of Latinos surveyed trusted the federal government to do the right thing "always" or "most of the time", as opposed to 20 percent of whites. Additionally, a 2012 Latino Decisions survey found that two-thirds of Latinos thought the federal government should ensure access to universal health care.

Views among Latinos on major political issues are convergent. In 2012, for instance, 74 percent of voters of Cuban descent said the economy was a crucial issue, while the percentage hovered around 50 for Mexicans, Dominicans, Central Americans and Puerto Rican; similarly, only 24 percent of Puerto Ricans and 31 percent of Cubans considered immigration a priority, though 46 percent of Central Americans and 41 percent of South Americans did, according to newspaper La Opinion.