Comments on: Poll: Obama’s Support on Health Care and Afghanistan Declining

By: dgfunk

dgfunk — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:20:32 +0000

Thanks for the link, L. You bring up an important point about the wording of poll questions. And certainly there are many mixed messages in that poll. But there still seems to be a widespread understanding that the status quo is not sustainable. At the very least, it seems clear that at least 65% are open to the possibility of public insurance. I don't think the question was deceptive.

By: JeffersonDavis

JeffersonDavis — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:14:58 +0000

This is just a hunch:

I would bet a year's pay that if you asked this question in any poll that it would be near 90%:

Would you support legislation that regulated insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, the healthcare industry, and provides for tort reform if it cut healthcare costs by 40%?

I've always said that the above criteria would lower the cost of healthcare for everyone in the nation.

I wonder how that poll question would fare?

By: Leonidas

Leonidas — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:25:19 +0000

From the link. "On one of the most contentious issues in the health care debate — whether to establish a government-run health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurers — nearly two-thirds of the country continues to favor the proposal."

It's the same poll.

They asked essentially the same question worded differently and 65% favorable was the highmark (which the liberal paper noted) but it also went lower on other responses and even with more disapproving. So take from it what you will the actually questions are here:

http://documents.nytimes.com/new-york-times-cbs...

That 65% figure doesn't look very strong when other similar questions in the same poll give different results.

By: GreenDreams

GreenDreams — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:43:56 +0000

well, CO, just maybe people are looking at the despicable practices and soaring cost of their declining insurance coverage and want a public option for THEMSELVES, whether or not they think we the people should care about the health of we the people.

By: casualobserver

casualobserver — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:34:30 +0000

All you are doing is reciting………let's hear your insightful explanation of why your chosen question polls high, but all surrounding questions barely get a majority, if not a net negative.

Ok, yes, of course, the number one reason is because Republicans made wise-ass remarks.

Now, how about reasons 2 and 3?

By: dgfunk

dgfunk — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:05:37 +0000

From the link. “On one of the most contentious issues in the health care debate — whether to establish a government-run health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurers — nearly two-thirds of the country continues to favor the proposal.”

It's the same poll.

By: JeffersonDavis

JeffersonDavis — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:51:27 +0000

That is an awesome correlation. It would explain the current funk within the party – with blue-dogs, libs, and moderate dems.

Great post.

By: casualobserver

casualobserver — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:33:25 +0000

I agree, further elaboration is warranted. This poll question and it's twin sister question, “Do you want a free lunch?” shows remarkably consistent public support in whatever decade it is asked. However, when the pollees comes to understand the free lunch is actually not free to certain income tax payers and employer sponsored plan enrollees, that the current free lunch recipients are told their lunches will be scaled back in part to pay for the new recipients and the remainder of the cost will be passed to the next generation and that the details of the free lunch plan will not be made public in advance of the vote…….curiously enough, the support for the free lunch program begins to sag a bit.

By: Leonidas

Leonidas — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:29:29 +0000

Is this the same poll that showed that Americans favored creation of a public option by 65% to 26%? I would think that any analysis of the poll that omitted that fact, and its consequences, is rather incomplete.

No this is a more credible poll It had a 51/40 split which is within the realm of possibility.

It also included a question that asked:

"Do you think the federal government has a moral responsibility to guarentee health insurance for all Americans, or is that not the federal government's moral responsibility?"

47% said it was 48% said it was not.

By: dgfunk

dgfunk — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:02:00 +0000

Is this the same poll that showed that Americans favored creation of a public option by 65% to 26%? I would think that any analysis of the poll that omitted that fact, and its consequences, is rather incomplete.

By: DLS

DLS — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:33:37 +0000

The problem is that Obama has placed himself and his reputation at risk by aligning with lib Dems in the House, which are well left of the mainstream and have alienated themselves from the mainstream and from other Dems. The overreach has reached the point of failure and fracture of the Dems (the GOP has been sidelined or routinely bypassed or suppressed by the Dems, and the GOP cannot be handily blamed this time).

By: shannonlee

shannonlee — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:12:22 +0000

"And it seems as if Democrats are falling into an old pattern: once in power they have tended to either fall into disunity (divide and lose rule)"

This statement created an interesting connection in my head. In a previous article a commentor mentioned that Afghanistan isn't so much a country, but more groups of tribes that live within a defined border.

Could it be that the Dem party is much in the same way. A bunch of groups that are more loyal to their tribe than they are the Dem party? They join together when oppressed by the Rep party, but spliter the second they gain control.

By: Posts about Barack Obama as of September 25, 2009 » The Daily Parr

Posts about Barack Obama as of September 25, 2009 » The Daily Parr — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:02:31 +0000

[...] Reagan? JFK? Lincoln? John Adams? George Washington?* I sure as heck wouldn’t. No thank you. Poll: Obama’s Support on Health Care and Afghanistan Declining – themoderatevoice.com 09/25/2009 A new New York Times/CBS News poll brings two bits of bad [...]