Obama Approval Rating Slips in Another Poll, as Does Support for Health Reform

President Obama's job approval rating has slipped to its lowest point ever in Quinnipiac University's polling, and voters not only oppose one of his top priorities, health care reform, but disapprove of his handling of the issue.

Forty-six percent approve of Obama's performance while 44 percent disapprove, with 10 percent undecided, according to the poll conducted Dec. 1-6. That's a slight drop from last month when his approval ratio was 48 percent to 42 percent.

"The decline in Obama's overall approval in the last month has been small, with the exception of independent voters, who went from three points negative to 14 points," said Quinnipiac's Peter Brown. "If the trend continues, it won't be long before he could be in the unenviable position of having more Americans disapprove than approve of his job performance."

Voters disapprove of the health care legislation under consideration in Congress by 52 percent to 38 percent with 10 percent undecided, and they disapprove of Obama's handling of the issue, 56 percent to 38 percent with 6 percent undecided. The disapproval ratio on Obama's handling of health care was up from last month's 53 percent to 41 percent margin.

Obama is still trusted more than congressional Republicans on health care, by 44 percent to 37 percent with 20 percent undecided, but that compares to July when he was trusted more on the issue by 53 percent to 33 percent.

Nearly three-quarters of those polled do not believe Obama can keep his promise that reform of health care will not add to the deficit in the next decade.

Fifty-four percent disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy while 41 percent approve, with 5 percent undecided. That's a slight rise over last month. In July, voters approved of his handling of the economy by 52 percent to 42 percent. This month's numbers of the economy question were Obama's worst ever, and the biggest downward movement was among his fellow Democrats, where approval fell from 77 percent to 71 percent.

Seventy-one percent are very or somewhat dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country compared to 29 percent who are very or somewhat satisfied (only 3 percent are "very" satisfied). That margin has been pretty steady since August. In July, 60 percent were very or somewhat dissatisfied compared to 39 percent who were very or somewhat satisfied.