Another note on today's Washington Post poll: once again, Americans reportedly support the public option, but they don't back the overall plan being developed in Congress, just like the last time the Post polled on health care.
This cuts, pretty directly, against the concerns that both observers of the legislative process and key members of the Senate have voiced: that Democratic plans might go too far--that anything but the most conservative incarnation of Democratic health reform (the bill put out by the Senate Finance Committee) will be too liberal to earn consensus, i.e. the support of centrist senators like Ben Nelson (D-NE), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME).
According to the Post, that's not how the public sees it--they think Congress's current plans don't go far enough:
Americans support the public option overwhelmingly, 57 percent to 40 percent, according to the survey. They oppose the "changes to the health care system being developed by (Congress) and (the Obama administration)" 48 percent to 45 percent.
People like the public option; Congress's plans don't include it; people don't like Congress's plans. It seems simple enough, and it's been borne out by other recent polls as well: an Oct. 5 McClatchty/Ipsos poll found the public opposed to current plans 42 percent to 40 percent and in favor of the public option 53 percent to 42 percent, while an Oct. 8 Quinnipiac poll showed the public opposed to overall reform plans 47 percent to 40 percent and in favor of the public option 61 percent to 34 percent.
Sounds like Democrats should find a way to add the public option, and their problems will be solved.
Not so fast. In September the Post found
that support for overall reform plans increased if the public option wasn't included: in general, the public opposed health reform 49 percent to 46 percent; when asked what they thought of reforms if the public option was excluded, they supported health care reform 50 percent to 40 percent.
If this seems ambiguous, it is. Today's poll shows strong support for the public option, but doubts remain about opinion on health care reform as a whole. Three polls this month showed at least 10 percent of Americans unsure of or with no opinion on Democratic reforms. One poll last month showed 46 percent in the undecided category. (See a list of recent polls here.)
The discrepancy in opinion on the public option and the plans as a whole presents a conundrum to moderate senators and analysts watching the legislative process play out, but probably not to the rest of the public--especially those who want a more liberal version of reform to pass. But on the whole, opinion on health reform has varied from survey to survey, and it's hard to say exactly what the public wants and how badly they want it.
Where you see conundrum I see campaign cash.
"People like the public option"
Yet, not one person can tell you what's going to be in the government insurance policy. This is worse that having to pick what's behind door #3. No one, not even the politicians, know what's back there. Yet politicians, bolstered by tilted polls, say that most people want something that they can't describe in sufficient detail. What's covered? Don't know. What's the premium going to be? Don't know. What's the co-pay going to be? Don't know. What's the annual individual and family deductibles going to be? Don't know. What do you know about the government policy? It's better than what we have now. How so? Don't know.
How can millions be so ignorant as to claim they want this when they don't know what IT is?
Definitely agree with Paul (Athens GA, or Athens Greece? I assume Greece)
I would also point out that, while I agree with Paul that people in many cases likely don't know what they're talking about, this poll can't even determine what people know or don't know. Nowhere in the question about a public option are there the words "public option". It's phrased in the best language the government could ask for - "having the government create a new health insurance plan to compete with private health insurance". This could mean a whole host of different things, and while I realize there is still no set bill, this phrasing seems to make this new health care plan seem pretty meek.
I think there are far more interesting questions further into the survey, such as the change seen against mandates when the government provides financial assistance to those with incomes below $40,000 for 1 person or %88,000 for a family of 4. Another is the opposition to taxing expensive health plans, and the public's continued (correct, in my opinion) perception that government insurance would weaken Medicare. Most people don't seem to be buying that "reform" will be health care neutral either.
I'm not trying to criticize anyone here, although I'm sure there will be many MSM reports of the "overwhelming support" for a public option. I don't wonder if you wouldn't get a similar breakdown if asked "Should the government provide the public with a Mercedes ownership option".
Sadly I'm in GA and not in Greece.
Adn I concur that they sould quantify the benefits to be paid before proceeding. And using car types should do the trick. Yugo, Ford, Lexus, Beemer, Mercedes or Rolls. What should the government be giving away to those who can't afford to pay for their own care?
Sadly? I wish I could get back. I graduated a few years ago from UGA. Hence the Dawg
Yeah, "sadly" as in, Sadly I'm at work instead of goofing off somewhere else.
I'm not far from Athens. Great town. Lots of fun, except for home games. Traffic sucked. Probalby still does. I try to avoid going there on a home saturday. But the brightg side, no one is in town for the GA-FL game, you can park right in front of your favorite watering hole.
Hell, I'm a libertarian leaning conservative and I'm not totally averse to a public option. If you told me you wanted to let people below a certain income threshhold buy into Medicaid, maybe even with some assistance akin to the earned income tax credit, I'd support it in a heartbeat. But as near as I can tell, even if you wanted to be really picky about who could buy in and when, it oughtn't take more than 50 or 60 pages to do it. A 1200 page health care reform bill written by the same people who accidentally on purpose gave the AIG folks their bonuses without knowing about it, though, scares the hell out of me. How about if we dumped "health care reform" and focused on expanding "health care access"? I think this is what people are saying when they both oppose the current bill but support the public option - we don't want Washington to take over health care, we just want a back-up plan for those who find themselves without health insurance.
gbarto;
I see where you're coming from, and if that's the only way we could do it, I could live with it. This is actually exactly what I meant when I said the phrasing changes the numbers. And I 100% agree with what you say about 1200 pages, and I think that shows a little in the poll question addressing how the respondent feels Obama is addressing the issue.
I would argue that we already have dropped health care reform in everything but name. You could certainly argue the bills in Congress address health insurance reform, but that's is different. Health care "access" is also somewhat of a misnomer, because the law mandates access to everyone. But that's semantic and I know exactly what you mean. I do believe actual of Medicare and Medicaid in the vein recommended by the Dartmouth Study, Atul Gawande, and the Mayo Clinic would actually translate to health care reform overall, because the vast majority of private insurance reimbursement prices use the Medicare/Medicaid model as a base. Instead of buying into those programs, I would rather allow people struggling to afford insurance the ability to buy into the Federal employee health plan, the same one enjoyed by Congressmen, etc. We do need to increase citizens' ability to find and maintain health insurance, regardless of employment status, and as a conservative that is something I'm more than willing to pay taxes toward.
The confusion is easy to resolve;
People like the public option but don't understand the plan in congress, and thus are inclined to dislike it. Frankly, that's where I am right now. I'll start reading closer when something resembling a final version is being passed around.