Poll: People Hate the Mandate - FireDogLake

[WillyT]

Poll: People Hate the Mandate
By: Jane Hamsher Friday December 18, 2009 8:59 am

<snip>

New poll by Research 2000 for DFA and the PCCC shows that people hate the mandate:

Would you favor or oppose requiring all Americans to buy health insurance — the so-called mandate — even if they find insurance too expensive or do not want it

FAVOR - 38%

OPPOSE - 51%

NOT SURE - 11%

I’d also note that the wording of the question is the most charitable rendering the issue is ever likely to get.

When it appears in the ads of a Republican challenger who notes that the IRS will act as Aetna’s collection agency, I bet those numbers get dramatically worse.

<snip>

Link: http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/18/poll-people-hate-the-mandate/

Political Suicide, no???

:shrug:

[Laelth]

1. Yes. Political suicide. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Echo In Light]

29. Gotta keep the 2 party ruse alive & well - mission accomplished!

[Gman]

2. People don't like mandatory car insurance either

but they do it. I don't know of anyone getting voted out of office way back when they made car insurance mandatory. That's because it was "sold" as something that was the fault of deadbeats that didn't carry insurance.

[Romulox]

4. There's a large movement in Michigan to substantially alter the No Fault insurance scheme

due to gouging and price collusion. :hi:

[Vincardog]

6. Everyone does not have to drive. Everyone does not have to buy car insurance.

[Kalyke]

7. But car insurance is a choice: You can choose not to own a car.

You can't, however, choose not to have a body.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. But car insurance is relatively cheap

I have full coverage for several hundred thousand dollars for around $800 a year. If I wanted to drop down to just liability that I'm mandated by law to have the cost would go down to less than $300. Mandatory auto insurance "works" because it's inexpensive to cover a large number of people for the statistically small chance they will be in serious accidents costing thousands of dollars. I know it's a lot more expensive for young males and other high risk drivers but remember that the insurance is tied to an activity - driving- that many people want or need to do.

[roguevalley]

32. I pay for that for a truck and car for under 800 a year.

[WillyT]

9. Yet That Only Affects People Who Drive...This Affects Every Man, Woman, And Child...

And I'm more that a little uncomfortable comparing people's lives and longevity with a fucking car.

That's how we got into this predicament in the first place. Treating people's lives as a commodity.

:shrug:

[chandler2]

11. You've misunderstood the argument

The real issue is mandating that anyone should be required to buy a product from a private company. That's corporate welfare, and
it's wrong.

BEFORE it was mandatory to gift ins. co's with billions each year that is transferred to them from US, REMEMBER: if you had
insurance and got hit by an uninsured driver, YOUR policy would cover your damages. One of the bogus arguments made for why
it should be illegal to drive without having paid off an ins. co. is that whenever everybody got liability insurance, RATES
would GO down. HAVE they? NO. They've gone uP.

[Segami]

25. Thank you! Its the same, old tired comparisons making its rounds once again.

When reasonable, affordable quality health care IS provided to ALL Americans (rich or poor, young or old, healthy or sick) that also never have to wake up in the prime of their lives to a new reality nightmare (that will affect all those around them) of filing personal bankruptcy or having foreclosure actions filed against their homes/property for non-payment of massive hospital/medical bills, then you'll know you are on the right track of REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM & CHANGE. My Canadian friends continue to remind me each time that Canadians wake up every day knowing (in the back of their mind) that they have great medical coverage & care which also includes their love ones like their children or aging parents. Does anybody believe that ' state of mind, care & assurance ' is worth fighting for? Does anybody really believe that the current HCR they are trying to ram through will produce the SAME peace of mind for ALL? Nowhere near it.

[Umbral]

14. So would I be able to buy liability health insurance under this plan? Would I want to? nt

[laughingliberal]

15. People are not mandated to own a car

Kind of hard for us to live without a body. No one gets any choice here.

[laughingliberal]

18. delete, posted wrong level

[SlipperySlope]

31. Declaring yourself self-insured is legal in more than one state.

I've lived in more than one state where it is legal to declare yourself "self-insured".

All you basically had to do was show you were financially able to cover any damages up to the level of the minimum insurance requirement. In some states you have to deposit those funds with the State (or post a surety bond), but they will pay you interest.

So, even in some "mandatory" states, it isn't really mandatory.

[Romulox]

3. This may be a generational boondoggle for the Dems.

Why are they so willing to blow up the Party over an insurance company bailout? :wtf:

[DrDan]

5. sure seems like it to me. A PO would ease the burden. But without?

[Hello_Kitty]

10. Looks like the effort to "Welfare Queen" the uninsured isn't succeeding.

The industry better get more talking heads out there to repeat the "free rider", "gaming the system", and "healthy young people buying flat screen TVs and cell phones instead of insurance" memes. I guess too many Americans are dealing with expensive insurance themselves or know uninsured people who truly cannot afford it and realize that making them buy it isn't going to put money in their pockets.

[Fumesucker]

17. How many people buy a flat screen TV every month?

That's what the insurance costs are likely to be and more..

I know you didn't make that argument but it's a damn stupid one.

[Hello_Kitty]

24. I've seen right here on DU

Bullshit like "they can afford cell phones and fancy gadgets but not insurance". As you say, you don't buy those things every month and health insurance - between the premiums and out of pockets - is a helluva lot more expensive than a one time purchase of a gadget.

[harun]

12. Only groups who want a mandate are DLC'rs and the Health Insurance industry.

Constituents don't want it.

[chandler2]

13. Exactly right. The public aren't stupid. nt

[kestrel91316]

16. If we remove insurance from the picture entirely, a "mandate" becomes moot.

Under single payer, everyone is automatically covered by the fact of their existence. And our pooled resources pay for actual care rendered, and not billions wasted by paying gatekeepers to deny care.

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. Too bad Obama never got this.

[kestrel91316]

27. He probably owns a lot of stock in health insurance companies.

Money motivates virtually everyone in the US anymore.

[GreenPartyVoter]

28. It makes me wonder. It really does. Either that or he truly believes that

big pharma and the health insurance companies are integral to our economy and therefore afraid to tinker with them too much. (To which I say, "Bah, Humbug!")

[Sheri]

19. i hope the leaders of the D party see this poll and listen to the people.

what more evidence do they need? don't make people buy bad insurance!

[laughingliberal]

21. Let's recap. People like the public option, hate the mandate.

Obviously, the correct action, then, is kill the public option and pass a mandate! Genius! Is this still part of the chess game?

[Blasphemer]

22. Up is down.... black is white... and the Inusurance Industry Interests > The Public Interests.. nt

[marlakay]

23. Make ALL Health Care non profit and then we will take

a mandate. That simple.

[andym]

26. What happened to the employer mandate?

At least it would not put the burden on individuals. And for the unemployed, self-employed or small businesses there should be rewards (tax credit) not punishments if they get insurance. Probably wouldn't get 94%, but it would be a big improvement.

Anyway none of this solves the big problems which are 1) greedy insurance companies, 2) greedy Pharma and Medical device companies, 3) greedy Hospitals (who strongly lobbied against the Medicare expansion), and 4) greedy physicians (esp Specialists) (Physicians' lobby strongly lobbied against Medicare expansion.)

[dysfunctional press]

30. FUCK THE PEOPLE$- up the ass sideways. obama is in this for OBAMA.

what a pathetic tool he really is. :grr: