--for the public option remained at 70-80%?
Health Care Polling as of January 2010
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/01/12/cbs-poll-for-many-health-care-reform-does-not-go-far-enough/A new CBS News poll finds that a significant plurality of Americans do not feel reform has gone far enough. It also shows that overall support for Obama’s handling of health care reform has dropped to an all-time low of just 36%.
The most interesting questions in the poll were about whether people think reform went far enough or went too far: When asked about trying to “provide health insurance to as many Americans as possible,” 32% said that the plan goes too far, 35% said it doesn’t go far enough, and 22% said it is about right.
Asked about trying to “control costs,” 24% said that reform proposals go too far, 39% said it doesn’t go far enough, and 21% said it is about right.
And, when asked about “trying to regulate the health insurance industry,” the breakdown was 27% in the go too far camp, 43% saying the plan doesn’t go far enough, and 18% thinking it was about right.
Interesting, to me, is the segment of people that thought efforts to expand coverage are just about right. I find this perplexing. I can understand that some people who are opposed reform and spending in general would think the bill went too far, but I find it hard to believe anyone would think this bill did the right amount to expand coverage. Unlike cost control or regulation, the number of uninsured covered is very quantifiable. If you believe in universal coverage, a bill that only reduces the number of uninsured by roughly 60% clearly, by definition, does not go far enough. I find it hard to believe there is a large number of Americans who only want significantly expanded coverage, but not universal coverage for all Americans. I think it does show how effective the Democrats’ efforts to falsely depict the bill as “universal coverage” have been. The fact that some 25 million people in this country would still be without health insurance is probably not well known by the majority of Americans.
What I think is truly fascinating is how many people believe this health care reform legislation will not do enough to regulate the health insurance industry. Promising that reform would “keep the insurance industry honest” and end their bad practices has been one of the biggest Democratic selling points for reform. Even 26% of self-identified Republicans think reform does not go far enough in trying to regulate the insurance companies. That is shocking given the GOP’s long history of pushing for deregulation. Over a quarter of Republicans think a partisan Democratic bill meant to regulate an industry does not impose enough regulation.
The poll indicates that a large portion of Americans feel this bill has been way too friendly to the insurance companies. Insurance companies are not popular, and they are probably one of only a few industries people are actually clamoring to see face much tougher regulation. It seems substantially increasing the checks on the insurance industry would be the best way to improve the popularity of health care reform. Democrats are already viewed as taking the side of the bankers in the bailout; they don’t want to go into the 2010 election also being seen as being too friendly to the health insurance industry.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/14/health.care.poll/As House and Senate Democrats try to merge two separate health care reform bills, a new national poll suggests that when it comes to paying for the legislation, Americans favor provisions in the House bill over those in the Senate version.
According to the poll,
61 percent of the public favor the House provision, which taxes people with high incomes regardless of the kind of health insurance they have. Twenty-nine percent favor the Senate provision, which raises taxes on high-quality health insurance plans, regardless of the amount of money made by the people covered by those plans.
"A tax on the wealthy is obviously most popular with lower-income Americans, but it is also the preference of people making $100,000 a year or more," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Fifty percent of people in that income level prefer a tax on higher-income Americans to a tax on high-quality health care plans. Thirty-six percent of them prefer the tax on insurance plans rather than the income-based tax."
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted January 8-10, with 1,021 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/01/15/republicans-dont-need-to-run-on-repealing-the-whole-billRepublicans will probably run on repealing just the deeply unpopular provisions, like the individual mandate and the tax on health insurance benefits. We know those are winning messages because Obama campaigned on them in 2008.
The GOP might call the bill a bundle of corrupt promises masquerading as reform. They can point to the sweetheart deal for drug companies, the huge subsidies given to the private insurance companies, the deal cut with the hospitals, and the special carve-out for unions. Republicans will also be able to make a big deal about the lack of promised transparency and the many other broken promises from Obama about health care.
I can even picture Republicans attacking Democrats for passing a bill that lacks “Republican solutions” like tort reform and drug re-importation. Yes Republicans can now steal the mantle of being the party that supports drug re-importation because Obama killed it on the Senate floor. Some clever Republicans in bluer districts might even run a campaign on “fixing” the bill by removing all of the Democrats’ sweetheart deals and corporate giveaways.
The only defense for a deeply compromised bill is to have it in effect so people can judge for themselves if the benefits outweigh the negatives. The problem is, the bill does not really help anyone for four years. Democrats will have almost no immediate tangible positives to point to as a justification for their votes.
Between now and 2014, Republicans will point to every big premium increase, every higher co-pay, and every spike in drug prices as proof that “Democrats failed on health care.” Fair or not, the Republicans might start placing the blame for every new problem with our health care system at the feet of Democrats.Democrats allowed a handful of powerful special interests and conservative Democrats to kill all the most popular elements in the bill. The public option, Medicare buy-in, drug re-importation, repeal of the anti-trust exemption, cheaper drugs for Medicare with direct drug price negotiations were all removed.
This is not meant to be a doomsday prediction or a campaign manual for Republicans (they already know how to run against this bill). This is meant to be a massive warning to Democrats. All year, I have been trying to warn Democrats in Congress. They are about to commit political suicide by over-promising, under-delivering, and making themselves appear tools of the corporations ripping off regular Americans. If you say you are going to reform health care you better reform health care.
Health care reform is not unpopular because of attack campaigns against it. No amount of attack commercials was able to really dent the strong support for a public option. The bill is unpopular because Democrats kept removing every popular idea from the bill. Democrats are driving themselves straight off a cliff. They need to change course. Having the President say the only thing the very unpopular bill needs to save Democrats in 2010 is a good PR campaign is not helping the party.
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