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

• Author: Gabriel Miao Li,Tobias H. Stark,Wendy Gross,Jennifer Agiesta,Gaurav Sood,Jon A. Krosnick,Trevor Tompson,Josh Pasek
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/00027162221098020
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Politicization

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