Dem Poll: Public Overwhelmingly Supports Public Health Insurance Plan
With the policy wars ramping up in earnest, one thing to watch for will be efforts by both sides of the fights to present internal polling that, they say, proves that the public is on their side.
Celinda Lake’s Dem polling outfit, Lake Research, just conducted a new poll of 800 likely voters that, according to the firm, finds that the public strongly supports having the choice of a public health insurance plan and strongly rejects the insurance industry’s most cutting attacks on the idea.
A Dem operative sends over the polling, to be released later this morning, and here are a few key numbers:
While recent polling has shown consistent broad support for comprehensive health care reform, this poll specifically addressed whether people want a choice of a public health insurance plan. 73% of voters want a choice of a private or public health insurance plan, including Democrats (77%), Independents (79%), and Republicans (63%).
The firm also tested the insurance industry’s message about public health care and paired it with a message supporting it, and found the public to be far more receptive to the pro-public health care message:
62% of voters believe a public health insurance plan will spend less on profits and administration and force private insurers to compete while only 28% of voters believe the attack that a public health insurance plan would be a “big, government bureaucracy.” 60% believe that if private insurers are really more efficient than government, then they won’t have any trouble competing with a public health insurance plan. Only 23% believe a public health insurance plan would have an unfair advantage over private plans.
This polling was conducted for the pro-reform group Health Care for America Now, so take it for what it is, but the findings do seem to mirror those in public polls, in a general sense. More results here.
Insurance companies dictate how our entire medical care system is run. Those companies do not allow the producer of goods (doctors, hospitals, etc) to provide services desired by patients in the manner desired, if it means their profit level isn’t met. Insurance companies are squatting right in the middle of the consumer and producer, dictating to both how the system will be run, instead of staying in their proper place as an ancillary product for the consumer to perhaps gain an advantage in buying services/products from the medical community. Insurance companies role should be legislated such that it does nothing but provide insurance, and the government has never had the authority to run itself as an insurance agency.
This is great news to hear. My take on this is that the public option of any health care reform plan is going to be the main linchpin of what the insurance companies will fight over. They’ll agree to make some concessions if the public option is taken out or completely limited to the elderly, disabled, and the low-income.
flufferwink! where you been?
I’ve been on TPM arguing with Matt Cooper
I miss you on there!
stay here, man!
Also, Greg, there was an interesting white paper that was released over at Institute for America’s Future that showed how a public option plan would help control costs. You might be interested in that for a good read.
http://institute.ourfuture.org/news-release/2008125117/new-report-public-insurance-option-needed-provide-affordable-quality-health-
I sure hope the Dems come out with a smart plan right off the bat. A plan that will cost minimal and will truly benefit this country.
In Delaware we have SB 177, a mirror of HR 676 for single payer health care. This legislation would cover every person cradle to grave, with medical, dental, vision, nursing homes, prison care, aids, you name it. Our government is so entangled with State Chamber of Commerce (who sell the worst coverage), they continue to lobby 7 to l against citizens. Richard Nixon started this sick for profit system, never intended to cover basic care. This is another money making ponzi scheme devised by the GOP. Doctors/health care providers the fasted growing group in the nation (PNHP.org) ARE BEGGING OUR LEGISLATORS TO RID US OF THIS SYSTEM. insurance co. hires beancounters who are not doctors to overrule doctors treatment, the beancounter gets a commission for saving the ins. co. money. After WW2 Europe was broke (like the US now), they have the best health care in the world, and they are getting our jobs. companies will not stay here and pay for health care when they can operate in single payer countries, or countries where there is no health care costs at all….please help us get rid of this sick system by contacting your dem. leaders. Many of them are in the pockets of the insurance companies, who filled their campaign coffers….they must be exposed.
It only stands to reason that the public wants decent coverage. The problem remains, however, of how to you actually implement this? Does this mean there is a single-payer competing directly with private insurers? There’s no contest there. Does it mean those on the public plan are immune from bankruptcy due to medical bills, as they would be with a single-payer system, while those opting for the private “plan(s)” would be vulnerable? The bottom line is, the private insurers are going to fight a public plan that competes with them just as hard as they will fight against true single-payer – you might as well start with the best way to finance healthcare which is single-payer.
The Jacob Hacker paper cited above is nothing more than a cover-up. All cost reductions are made on the delivery side of healthcare, not the financing side, and those reductions are equally implementable and applicable in ANY system of healthcare financing. The continuous attempts to fit a round peg into a square hole, that is, to keep the private insurers in play for financing our healthcare in any way, shape, or form, would be amusing if it weren’t so dangerous. What is being proposed now, the so-called public option pitted against private plans, should be supported wholeheartedly by Republicans, if they were astute enough to realize that it will fail just like Massachusetts and others before it. Then they can blame it all on the Democrats.
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Yea, because government is known for creating things that work well at a low price. Wake up people! Do you know that Medicare is about 3.5 Trillion in the hole?
“The good news is that small changes in annual per capita growth rates have enormous implications for the long-term solvency of Medicare and the sustainability of expanded insurance coverage. Using data from the 2008 Medicare trustees’ report on projected revenues and total Part A and B spending, we estimate that Medicare will be $660 billion in the hole by 2023. Reducing annual growth in per capita spending from 3.5% (the national average) to 2.4% (the rate in San Francisco) would leave Medicare with a healthy estimated balance of $758 billion, a cumulative savings of $1.42 trillion.”from New England Journal of Medicine Sorry John As usual republicans continue to misinform.Polling also shows tremendous support for a public option but you wouldn’t know it from those blowhards running the networks and the radio ranters!The Congress gets so much bribe money from the health care industry they have to pretend the public option is unpopular.
How do you come up with all of this? You must have some good foundation on the subject right?
Interesting article. Were did you got all the information from…?
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