Poll Bankrolled By Foes Of Health Care Reform Finds Overwhelming Support For Public Plan
If this one doesn’t stiffen the spines of Dems who are wavering on whether to include a public health insurance option in the reform package, nothing will.
A new poll by a nonpartisan, D.C.-based research group finds truly overwhelming support for the public option. The kicker: The poll was bankrolled partly by previous opponents of health care reform, including one of the nation’s best-known insurance companies.
The poll — which was just released by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a D.C. policy think tank — finds that a majority (53%) strongly back the availability of a public plan, while another 30% “somewhat” support it. That’s a total of 83% in favor of a public plan — a staggeringly large majority.
Even more interesting, guess who paid for the poll? From the release:
This survey was made possible with support from AARP, American Express, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Buck Consultants, Chevron, Deere & Company, IBM, Mercer, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Principal Financial Group, Schering-Plough Corp., Shell Oil Company, The Commonwealth Fund, and Towers Perrin.
Not exactly a band of raging lefties. The American Association of Retired Persons and Blue Cross Blue Shield were among the opponents of HillaryCare in the 1990s.
While the news in this poll is not uniformly good for Obama’s plan by any means, the public plan is the main focus of debate right now, and on this, the poll is unequivocal. What’s more, it’s backed up by the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, which finds that three in four think the public option is important.
News of this new poll comes as Tom Daschle, who was almost Obama’s point man on health care reform, is out there suggesting that the White House may have to drop the public option to get reform passed with bipartisan consensus.
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Among the sponsors are also a handful of industrial companies (e.g., Chevron) who would likely benefit from the public option.
Wow. Sure glad his nomination fizzled. (Or did it blow up?)
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Looks like there’s some institutional mechanism at work that prevents anyone with backbone from becoming Senate majority leader. Sheesh.
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jzap — I kind of agree with you. It’s really a strange phenomenon. My theory is that Dems have internalized the idea that they can’t win arguments with Republicans.
Greg, you theorize “Dems have internalized the idea that they can’t win arguments with Republicans”? You’ve been around for a while, you should know that your theory is called, “Its OK if you are a Republican”. I don’t remember the last time I saw a Dem on television or heard on radio just making stuff up, spouting debunked lies as talking points, or arguing two opposing points within seconds of each other.
Republican’s feel that they are always correct, Dems think that everyone can reach a kumbayah moment, and nothing ever gets done because, how can you compromise with absolutism?
“That’s a total of 83% in favor of a public plan . . . the public plan is the main focus of debate right now, and on this, the poll is unequivocal.”
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Hardly!
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“But when told the arguments for and against the plan, a smaller portion, 47%, agreed with arguments in support of the plan, with 42% agreeing with the arguments against it.”
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Not to mention . . .
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“Nearly half the participants said it was very or somewhat likely that their employer would drop private coverage if a public plan were available . . . Majorities oppose plans to tax health benefits, even if the taxes only apply to particularly generous plans.”
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Left undiscussed, “Nearly seven in 10 survey respondents said they had concerns about federal interventions into the economy, including Mr. Obama’s decision to take an ownership stake in General Motors Corp., limits on executive compensation and the prospect of more government involvement in health care.”
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And, most striking to me, “Among independents, [Obama's approval rating] dropped from nearly two-to-one approval to closely divided.”
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Some good news, a lot of bad.
Wow! The NY Times/CBS poll has a ton of bad news, too.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/us/politics/18poll.html
sbj — nice sleight of hand. that stuff you cite is in the WSJ poll, not this one
@Greg: Not intentional – I thought you were going to post on the WSJ poll?
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At any rate – a nice counter to the results of this poll.
Forget bi-partisan on this…seriously, just go for it, without the R’s…when it comes to health care and energy plans…forget the GOP…”go big or go home” when it comes to these two issues…an overwhelming majority from mulitple polls trust Dems way more than the GOP on healthcare, in one poll people even trust insurance companies more than the GOP, that says a lot…and for godssake, the verdict is still out on what policies are going to have positive results. The new President has been in office for a whopping 5 months…many of us gave Bush and the GOP eight years to screw this Country up so badly that we were on the brink of the abyss in September 2008…most of us (granted not the Fox “News” crowd) are willing to give this President more than 5 months, or 6 months or 12 months etc. to try and work through the heeping pile of mess he walked into…I am actually surprised that his numbers are still in the mid to high 50’s considering all that he has done in the first few months and his personal favorability is still very high, anyone that doesn’t think that matters is still trying to figure out how Bill Clinton won a second term…
Tough to know exactly what’s going on. We’d assume trial balloons and initial bargaining positions (amendable) in all of this. But the administration would be foolish and irresponsible in the extreme if they drop the public option. As I’ve noted before, the US is quite unique among all the advanced western nations in having no public healthcare plan for the general public. More tellingly, it is the case that in all those other nations which have had many decades of experience with such public programs, not a single one evidences any desire to move back to a private enterprise dominated system – no party in any of those countries would stand a chance with their electorates if this became a policy platform stance. Further, the American system is far more costly in its inefficiencies than any of those other nations’ systems even while falling far below the others in measurements such as infant mortality.
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This is both an economic issue and a moral issue of profound importance. The administration must not be allowed to cave on this one.
Here is more perspective of the polls…
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/18/headlines-make-up-poll-results/
So, sbj – you’re among the “I want Obama to fail” posse, eh?
Cause that’s sure how you sound.
Here…here Bernie…like I said…the Dems need to drop the bi-partisan warm fuzzy that they seem to be inching toward…the Country and public opinion is vastly different now than during HillaryCare in the 90’s…all of these “BS” talking points were used against FDR when he was cleaning up the last catastrophic Republican mess…it’s all the far right GOP knows how to do…fortunatly I do believe that we will see a few (albeit a very few) moderate Republicans supporting the Dems healthcare agenda…in fact, maybe the GOP will lose another moderate during the “fighting”…they lost Spectar right after the Stim Plan…sometime I think that the Dems allow distractions from the GOP talking points to muddy up the water…the AMERICAN PEOPLE DO NOT TRUST THE GOP…we can go round and round with this poll and that poll…but ALL the polls demonstrate ONE UNIVERSAL FACT…the GOP is the lowest they have ever been in public support…the GOP has a LONG way to go before it is even viable…and they have their own internal issues to work through…they are still trying to figure out if they are going to try and expand the tent or just whittle is down to the “hard core” conservatives and forget the moderates…it will be interesting to watch…
@Tena: Sounds like you’re setting a trap! Please don’t equate a disagreement on policy as a hope for failure; I hope his presidency is successful. I disagree with some of his policies, so I hope he changes them. When it comes to specific policies that people oppose, both the WSJ and NY Times polls seem to indicate that I am not alone – perhaps in the majority even on certain issues. I laughed out loud when I read someone else earlier who wrote that we should be willing to give the President more time. I remember that GW was attacked before he was even sworn in! So I suppose some of my posts are a trifle bitter about the amazing double standards at play. Regarding health care, I don’t want to lose my current plan (which a lot of people seem to fear might happen – per WSJ poll), and I don’t want to have my benefits taxed (and a lot of people agree with me on that). I DO want to see many more people covered and I want to see prices come down. I believe there is some merit to the argument that the public option is something of a stalking horse for single payer. I want health care reform to be done right and, so far, I don’t have one tiny bit of confidence in what I’ve seen coming out of Congress.
Jenn
Understood. But all of that makes Daschle’s comment (given it has been correctly duplicated and contextualized) rather inexplicable. We probably ought not to minimize the power of the financial interests involved here nor to minimize the profound threat to anti-government ideologies which would likely result (as Kristol implicitly acknowledged in 92) from a public program which, once in place, would result in a very happy electorate. There is, I think, no issue or battle more central than this one as it places the entire modern conservative economics movement (and their institutions) along with unfettered-capitalism ideologies (and the corporate institutions behind that) in dire jeopardy. And they know it.
Totally disavowing sbj as always (what does he/she/it thinks will happen if Obama caves on health reform)? The Republicans with their no-reform are going to come sweeping into power? Trust me, if the Blue Dogs muck this up, they won’t be swept out of office by Repubs hawking their crazy “tax-cuts to cure healthcare compromise”, they will be primaried by and taken down by “better” Democrats. The Republicans are not very subtle: they have been out to separate the President from his base, knowing that by demoralizing the netroots and the activists that they will be able to bring his numbers down and stop most of the progressive change that they hate.
The Blue Dogs are the pieces I’m not seeing fit right in this puzzle: do they really believe that if they introduce some half-hearted doomed to fail health care initiative that they’ve gotten to by “bipartisan compromise” (in the Glenzilla formulation of all Republican’s + Blue Dogs) that their voters will reward them with re-election for doing the will of the opposition party?
And here’s a little more…looks like Pew has some polling out as well…
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/18/744008/-Pew:-Widespread-Support-For-Insuring-Everyone,-Obama-Approval-Steady
Even Republicans support getting everyone insured! They just don’t support the public option . . .
“They just don’t support the public option”
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Of course “they” don’t. Ideological rigidity is a hard-won personal characteristic (it takes a lot of beatings from one’s father to set it in place) and that sort of investment ought not to be cast off flippantly.
The poll i read was just about evenly split into thirds – 1/3 for, 1/3 against, 1/3 undecided. I’d like to see the details – and I also wonder if my employer will continue to offer health-care after the public plan comes out.
Will anyone here be ditching their private health insurance for the public plan?
Whichever plan is put forth – I hope it is well thought out.
- ps = was the nbc/wsj poll located here:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/090617_NBC-WSJ_poll_Full.pdf
Something is fishy here…a DKOS diary just said that the WhiteHouse is recieving far more calls against single-payer or a public option..would it be possible to find out if the private health insurance companies, big pharma and the HMO are paying people to call against…? (Remember the phone jamming scam the GOP pulled in New Hampshire..and got away with?) We have Senators and Congress members behaving like lobbyist for the private health care companies, themselves ..and now this…? WTF? What the hell is going on in this country…?
Concerning the “Poll Bankrolled By Foes Of Health Care Reform Finds Overwhelming Support For Public Plan,” as the author of the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) report, I would note that the same survey looked at and found support for a number of different health reform concepts. 53% strongly supported a public plan option and 30% somewhat supported it. Similarly, 52% strongly supported allowing major health insurance companies to offer national plans that anyone can purchase, and another 36% somewhat supported it. 55% strongly supported guaranteed issue and 25% somewhat supported it. 45% strongly supported expanded government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, while 30% somewhat supported it. 42% strongly supported an employer mandate, while 33% somewhat supported it. And 38% strongly supported an individual mandate, while 30% somewhat supported it. Their opinions on all of the reform options may change as details surface, especially as they concern financing options and potential tradeoffs.
It’s quite basic and all boils down to this.
“Of all the forms of inequality injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”….Martin Luther King
The president has said that a national health system is “Too Radical!” Two Wars with an open tab now totalling
$87 Billion and counting and $8.7 TRILLION to bailout the banks and those responsible for the economic collapse (This is apparently NOT too radical.)even as Taxpayers without subsidy are losing their homes makes it pretty obvious to all but the most dense or decietful that the welfare of the American taxpayer is not even on the political agenda. America must decide whether we are going to be about the business of healthcare or about the healthcare business.Failure to commit to the former and further attempts to preserve the latter in any way will I think inevitably bring further economic disaster.
Given the rampant greed on steroids evidenced by the insurance and Pharmaceutical industries it ought to be blatantly obvious to anyone that a Single Payer system is what is needed.Anyone opposed to it either has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo or they are so paranoid about socialism as to act against their own best
interests.I have no faith in the Democratic party and one thing is for damn sure. The Republican party is to the welfare of the American taxpayer what botulism is to a can of tuna.The last eight years are a testament to that point.
Stop the rhetoric people are dying! Not to suggest that this has ever been a factor were political considerations are concerned.Americans would sleep through the Sermon on the Mount but we’ll fight like dogs over political parties to whom we are all only votes and children of a lesser God.
I found theplumline.whorunsgov.com very informative. The article is professionally written and I feel like the author knows the subject very well. theplumline.whorunsgov.com keep it that way.
I vote no to any goverment intervention in our private healthcare. Yes to offer limited health care to those citizens “legal” that cannot afford or obtain a policy due to, laid off, recently unemployed., have pre existing conditions that no one will insure. Also Yes to help pay hospitals for caring for all of the illegal immigrants and other persons using the emergency rooms without payment. Also offer “catastrophic health care coverage for those that are in need (at some cost to the individuals for the above)
1.If the reform goverment healthcare is so good, why is it the President and the House and Senate members are not signed up to use it for themselves and their families?
2. Look what has happened to Medicare..You really think the goverment can run anything well and stay out of debt? I don’t think so.
3. Look at our current VA medical system, broke, worn out and not really fully functional…Is that what you want taking care of you and yours???
Good luck
Not so sure I agree with all of this
do you mislead people on purpose? The NBC/WSJ clearly shows that 42% disapprove of the health care “reform” compared to 36% favor. BTW, this is a gain of 16% in disapproval during the last four months.
I just wish it didn’t cost several thousand dollars to get an MRI so my doctor could figure out why I keep having low back/piriformis muscle spasms. I’m already paying $300 out of pocket to have a meeting with an endocrinologist to try to figure out why my PCOS is so hard to treat.
My husband and I are self-employed so we don’t have employer health benefits, and it’s useless for me to try to buy insurance unless I lie about having PCOS.
I don’t want “free sh*t”. I just want to be able to afford to do something about my problems and still operate our business and enjoy life. I don’t take vacations. I don’t have designer clothes. I don’t even drive a car, myself; we have a 15 year old truck we can’t really afford to replace at the moment. I’m not one of these people that says “I can’t afford an MRI!” and then runs out and buys a TV on a payday loan. I’m just limited on options and if no new treatment strategies arise from this $300 meeting (that’s just the consultation fee alone. Labs will cost more.), I’m going to give up.
Juliana – You hit the nail right on the head and are your post is the only one that makes any sense about the fact that something needs to be done. The problem is that most Americans “just want to be able to afford to do something about my (their) problems and still operate our (their) business and enjoy life” when it comes to managing their personal health care. All these arguments about what to do or not do about health-care reform simply mislead everyone about the fact that something needs to be done. Doing something “could” create a lot of government mismanagement. Doing nothing “will” prevent Americans from getting affordable health-care because the cost will continue to go up. It sounds to me like the only ones that will win from whatever comes from this debate are the lawyers who work for the government and for the insurance companies.
Very selective of you not to mention similar or even higher support for alternatives to a public plan. Read it yourself at http://www.ebri.org/pdf/briefspdf/EBRI_IB_7-2009_HCS_09.pdf.
It also shows fully 88% of respondents are happy with their current health plan. This is why Obamacare is failing, people don’t see enough benefit for the eye-popping cost.
Ah, Bill, that’s one example of the polls that doesn’t garner 100% of US population for it’s stats…the same goes for any other polls ever conducted. Some demographic areas like Philly, Atlanta, Chino, Harlem, etc would definitely favor the healthcare reform while other demographic areas like Manhattan, King of Prussia, Northern Boston, loads of small towns, etc are against the healthcare because they are heavily vested in their insurance plan (probably investors in the insurance company) or they believe communism is going to take over the world.
People, Barry may not have the best healthcare plan…but there are states like PA that have it’s own version of a healthcare bill and it makes a bit more sense. It has increased taxes but it goes towards healthcare and for those that already have perfect health insurance (does such a thing exist?) and are crying about higher taxes, I have no idea of a solution for you except that I highly doubt private insurance is better than the same or better insurance for free.
The stats are there for US ranking in healthcare, infant mortality rates, etc…we are NOT a leading country in healthcare. We ARE the leading country in the most expensive healthcare though.
The biggest problem w/ all of this is, we have not been told the truth on the costs for these proposals. How can we go for a public option, if its costs will bankrupt us? Why not try some of the targeted solutions first to reduce costs, & if they do not, then go w/a public option?
Lets face it, a government run public option is not ‘competition.’ It is a monopoly. Why not let all 1,300 existing private health insurers to market products nationwide? !,300 is competition, not one.
Setting up special plans for the pre-existing &/or ‘uninsurable’ plus allowing people to have individual tax credits so they can buy their own policies, rather than employer based coverage would also go a long way. Lastly, w/o serious tort reform, no reform is going to make a hill of beans difference. In Texas & California, it was reported they reduced premium costs by 30% & 40% respectively, where tort reforms were passed.
The other issue is, each state has its own health care laws, & they conflict w/ the feds. How can we ever have reason if we have the feds enacting legislation that contradicts states?
Why do you guys still use terms like, democrates and republicans? You are either a socialist, or a capitalist. Call it like it is. If your for socialysim then call yourself a socialist. If you are and remember what America is all about, then call yourself a capitalist.