Just after the House of Representatives voted to pass a temporary government spending bill that would also defund Obamacare, Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio -- who wants the Senate to do the same -- issued a press release saying:
"The American People support defunding Obamacare and oppose shutting down the government."
PolitiFact Florida decided to put that statement to the test.
The ruling? Mostly false.
"We looked at a number of different polls that all asked people if they supported defunding Obamacare," explained PolitiFact's Angie Holan. " People tended to say no to that question by approximately 57 or 58 percent. People don't like the idea of defunding Obamacare. So that part was wrong."
What Rubio got right, according to PolitiFact, was the American public's opposition to shutting down the government.
On the defunding Obamacare issue, Holan said, "These polls get really interesting. People don't like defunding Obamacare, but the law still isn't that popular with people. When you asked people, 'Do you favor the health care law or do you oppose it?' you get more people saying they oppose it or they don't favor it, depending on how the question's asked."
So what explains the contradiction?
Holan said, "We went to a Harvard University expert who studies health care polling and he said that people can say they don't like a law but saying it should be defunded is going a dramatic step further. He said that people seem to think if the law's on the books, it should be funded."
