Americans Want Their PPACA Court TV

Americans want to see the U.S. Supreme Court admit television cameras when it hears oral arguments on lawsuits questioning the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA).

 

Lydia Saad of Gallup Inc., Princeton, N.J., has published PPACA hearing TV poll figures in a commentary based on results from a telephone survey of about 1,000 U.S. adults ages 18 and older that was conducted in December.

 

Gallup found that 70% of Democrats, 73% of independents and 72% of Republicans want the court to let the TV cameras in.

 

About 72% of all survey participants said the court should admit TV cameras.

 

Traditionally, members of the Supreme Court have argued that admitting cameras could lead to grandstanding and cause other problems.

 

Although Republicans were somewhat more interested in seeing the court admit cameras than Democrats are, survey participants who identified themselves as moderates were less likely than either conservatives or liberals to want the deliberations to be televised.

 

Only 66% of the moderates said the court should admit cameras, compared with 78% of the conservatives and 75% of the liberals.

 

Participants ages 55 and older were more likely to say the court should admit cameras than younger participants were: 66% of the older participants said they favor cameras in the courtroom, compared with 75% of the participants ages 18 to 34 and 79% of the participants ages 35 to 54.