Americans’ Attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act: What Role Do Beliefs Play?

AuthorGabriel Miao Li,Tobias H. Stark,Wendy Gross,Jennifer Agiesta,Gaurav Sood,Jon A. Krosnick,Trevor Tompson,Josh Pasek
Published date01 March 2022
DOI10.1177/00027162221098020
Date01 March 2022
ANNALS, AAPSS, 700, March 2022 41
DOI: 10.1177/00027162221098020
Americans’
Attitudes
toward the
Affordable Care
Act: What Role
Do Beliefs
Play?
By
GABRIEL MIAO LI,
JOSH PASEK,
JON A. KROSNICK,
TOBIAS H. STARK,
JENNIFER AGIESTA,
GAURAV SOOD,
TREVOR TOMPSON,
and
WENDY GROSS
1098020ANN The Annals Of The American AcademyAmericans’ Attitudes Toward The Aca
research-article2022
How do people form their attitudes toward complex
policy issues? Although there has long been an assump-
tion that people consider the various components of
those issues and come to an overall assessment, a grow-
ing body of recent work has instead suggested that
people may reach summary judgments as a function of
heuristic cues and goal-oriented rationalizations. This
study examines how well a component-based model fits
Americans’ evaluations of the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act of 2010, an important and highly
contentious piece of legislation that contained several
constituent parts. Despite strong partisan disagreement
about the law, we find that Democrats and Republicans
both appear to evaluate the law as a function of their
beliefs and what the law would do as well as their con-
fidence in those beliefs. This finding implies that cor-
recting misperceptions and increasing awareness of the
components of legislation have the potential to change
attitudes.
Keywords: evaluations; belief updating; Affordable
Care Act; misperceptions
For at least a century, scholars have worried
that Americans lack the factual knowledge
required to make informed decisions about vot-
ing and about public policy (e.g., Bartels 1996;
Campbell etal. 1960; Craig, Kane, and Gainous
2005; Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996; Eveland
etal. 2005; Zaller 1992). In recent years, par-
ticular concern has focused on what appear to
Gabriel Miao Li is a PhD candidate in the Department
of Communication and Media at the University of
Michigan. His research examines how information,
knowledge, and heuristic cues shape the formation and
expression of public opinion on contentious political
issues.
Josh Pasek is an associate professor of communication
and media and political science and core faculty at the
Michigan Institute for Data Science at the University of
Michigan. His research explores how media and psy-
chological processes shape political attitudes, public
opinion, and political behaviors and methods for social
measurement.
Correspondence: jpasek@umich.edu

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