Race, Religion and Support for the Affordable Care Act

Abstract

Using Pew Research Center’s Voter Attitudes Survey from 2012, we assess the impact race has on the relationship between religious faith and worship attendance with support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We find that White Evangelicals, independent of partisan affiliation and social-demographic characteristics, are more likely than White Non-Evangelicals to reject the ACA. In addition, among Whites, support for the ACA weakens with increasing religious attendance, suggesting that responses to this law are shaped by experiences within religious settings. However, we find little evidence for religious faith or worship attendance associating with Black and Hispanic health-care policy attitudes.