Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight has found an interesting Ipsos-McClatchy poll (currently the fifth poll on this page). This poll reveals some interesting things about American support for the current health care reform bills. Overall, 34% of Americans support the bills and 46% oppose them. However, this poll also asks of a perosn who opposes or supports the proposals why they do so (albeit in a limited fashion). Of the 46% who oppose the bill, 25% of them oppose them despite favoring health care reform overall because they feel that it doesn't go far enough. Funnily enough, 10% favor the bills because they believe that the bills in their current state will keep health care reform from occurring.
Some more statistics from the poll:
22% favor a single-payer system. 72% oppose such a system.
52% favor a public system to compete with private health insurance companies. 36% oppose a public system.
57% favor non-government run insurance co-operatives. 31% oppose such entities.
An overwhelming 76% favor regulations to ensure patient rights. Only 13% oppose such regulations.
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3 comments:
Why oppose a bill that doesn't go far enough? A glass half full rather than all the way full is better than an empty glass.
I feel that with the complexities of health care, people sometimes support what they would like to see in an ideal world rather than what is realistic. For example, have the 57% who support non-governmental co-ops thought about the reality of a co-op? Co-ops may appear to be a good solution, but with the realities of business competition, the co-ops would not have the abilities to provide many improvements people hope for, such as lower prices.
I think some people oppose the bill for not going too far because they're afraid that if the bill passes, then the drive for health care reform would die. They're thinking that there's a better chance of a full-fledged health care reform bill eventually passing than amendments to a weak health care bill. Looking at all the trouble Obama had making it so far in the process, those people are probably thinking that Democrats won't have the political power to enact more changes to health care after some form of the current bill is signed into law.
Yes, that's a good point. But with all the trouble Congress is having passing this piece of legislation that supposedly "doesn't go far enough," it's hard to imagine that a stronger bill would pass smoothly, if at all.
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