Following up on yesterday’s post, I see that a brand-new New York Times/CBS nationwide poll shows widespread support for a real public health insurance option. The wording of the question was clear: “Would you favor or oppose the government’s offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private insurance plans?”
Results: 72 percent of respondents favored the public option, including 87 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of independents, and 50 percent of Republicans.
Senator Chuck Grassley works overtime to snuff out a public option, urging President Obama to support a bipartisan bill in the Senate. But in the real world, a strong public option has bipartisan support. Even half of Republicans favor making a “government administered health insurance plan like Medicare” available to all Americans.
A public option would increase competition and give Americans more choices while driving down costs. A recent report found that one or two companies dominate the health insurance market in most parts of the country.
Obama will speak to ABC News about health care on Wednesday. I’ll be listening carefully to see whether he endorses a strong public option, which the House Democrats’ draft bill contains, or whether he remains open to a fake public option such as regional cooperatives or a “trigger”.
UPDATE: To be clear, the CBS/NYT poll is not an outlier. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released last week found, “Three in four people said a public [health insurance] plan is extremely or quite important.” A poll “bankrolled partly by previous opponents of health care reform” showed that “a majority (53%) strongly back the availability of a public plan, while another 30% ‘somewhat’ support it.”
5 Comments
Dems better not cave...
…Because if they do, this could be, if you’ll pardon the sports metaphor, the 1994 baseball strike all over for me, meaning I may never vote Dem again — or at least take a 13 year hiatus before returning to he game — at least on the sidelines anyway.
As my partner says, weakness must be crushed. Speaking of which (weakness, not Karen), it appears Tom Daschle has gone on the record saying he supports dropping the public support option if that is what it takes to get the bill passed. Thank Uncle Sam he never made it into Obama’s cabinet.
tmlindsey Sat 20 Jun 10:28 PM
Daschle backpedaled somewhat
on that statement (saying he really is for a public option), but I don’t like whatever game he’s playing. We are definitely better off without him in the cabinet.
On the one hand, Democrats would be monumentally stupid not to seize the chance to pass a strong public option, given what polls are showing.
On the other hand, when you see how much money the insurance and pharmaceutical industries have spent to buy influence in Congress, it’s a miracle we even have a shot at getting this bill through.
desmoinesdem Sun 21 Jun 8:54 AM
Enter: Campaign Finance Reform
Stage Left…
That’s another point that chaps my hide, my private insurer Hellmark (I’m in the process of finding a new carrier by the way) spending a chunk of my premium money on lobbyists when it could be used to drive down my premium costs.
With full control of both houses and the White house, I’m not going to let the Dems off the hook for this one.
Grow a spine and do what’s morally right and do what you were elected to do — or don’t let the door hit you on the way out…
Stage Right…
tmlindsey Sun 21 Jun 3:48 PM
I saw that Wellmark
was in the news this week:
desmoinesdem Sun 21 Jun 4:33 PM
Hellmark
I read this earlier…
Not only is Wellmark/Blue Cross Blue Shield one of the largest financed lobby contingents in D.C. trying to squash any public option, but they’ve effectively priced me out of the market. My premiums have shot up 50% in the last two years, with no major medical catastrophe for myself and/or 3 sons. And these rate increases is even more than Forsyth’s doubled salary/bonuses.
Ironically, he earned the bonuses for bringing in so many new members, which you would think would bring down the rest of rates, but is spent feeding the Fat Cats. If not, where did all the money go…?
tmlindsey Sun 21 Jun 9:34 PM