Missouri voters passed a proposition rejecting the federal mandate to purchase health insurance by a close-to three-to-one margin:
The citizens of the Show-Me State don’t want Washington involved in their health care decisions.
Because the corporations are doing such a good job of it.
There is little doubt that their proposition will be invalidated by the courts, so the real purpose of it was for Republicans to gain partisan advantage against Obama and the Democrats.
24 Comments
Like it or not all polls then and now accross the country show the majority, again majority of American voters want HCR repealed or overhauled. It is badly broken as it stands. I and most everyone agree with many of the landmark tenents within such as eliminating denial for pre-existing conditions and not being able to be dropped when you’re sick. It’s the notion that you must buy insurance or be penalized and now because that probably would not stand muster in court (VA case) the DOJ is arguing it’s a tax not a penalty.
I understand how vehemently supporters of this bill feel, but they must understad theirs is the minority opinion.
Lets keep the good parts and fix whats broken not say “you people don’t know whats good for you, so let us tell you whats good for you”
Patriotgst – please cite your source for the assertion that “the majority, again majority of American voters want HCR repealed or overhauled”.
PatriotSgt, recent polls show more people like the health care bill than want it repealed. See http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/111601-support-for-health-reform-reaches-high-in-kaiser-poll
Yes, I know that Fox “News” is trumpeting the opposite, but they had to put one very huge caveat to get that result — their poll only counts “probable voters”. How they decided who is a probable voter is anyone’s guess and it is clear this was a push poll, since everyone knows that old people vote more than young people, and old people are largely against health care reform because they already have medicare (which is single payer!).
I don’t see how healthcare can be affordable if pre-existing conditions are to be covered and coverage can’t be denied AND people can avoid having health insurance without paying a penalty. To make up for the costs of covering the very sick, more people have to join the pool.
As I understand it, this “penalized” condition for not having insurance mean you will not get a deduction on your taxes. This form of penalty is used in many ways, a tax break if you make improvements to your house, save for retirement, and or send a child to college. So does that mean we are going to repeal those as well? If we are going to shut these incentives down, then we need to close all the loopholes in the tax code that provide “tax shelters” for the rich. These forms of “penalty” are often referred to as an incentive, and it makes sense since if you are not going to get healthcare coverage for yourself you are really saying that you are going to rely on the welfare of either the government or a hospital when you actually do get sick and require care. Unless you are never going to get sick, if you are that delusional then you will probably need some long term care eventually, the ones with extra long sleeved sweaters.
Well hello again, info below as requested:
USA Today/Gallup Poll. June 11-13, 2010. N=1,014 adults nationwide. MoE ± 4.
“Would you favor or oppose Congress passing new legislation this year that would do the following? How about repeal all or much of the health care legislation passed earlier this year?”
6/11-13/10 Favor Oppose Unsure
50 45 5
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. July 27-28, 2010. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3
“What do you want to happen with the new health care law: make sure it is implemented as it is, make changes to it, or repeal it all together?”
Implement as is Make changes Repeal it Unsure
7/27-28/10 15 42 36 7
4/6-7/10 12 47 36 4
CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. July 16-21, 2010. N=1,018 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.
“Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling health care policy?”
7/16-21/10 Approve Disapprove Unsure
44 54 2
Pew Research: July 8-11, 2010. N=1,001 adults nationwide. MoE ± 4
“Do you approve or disapprove of the health care legislation passed by Barack Obama and Congress in March?”
7/8-11/10 Approve Disapprove Unsure
35 47 17
CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. May 21-23, 2010. Adults nationwide.
“Do you approve or disapprove of the passage of the health care bill which became law in April?” N=499 (Form B), MoE ± 4.5
5/21-23/10 Approve Disapprove Unsure
43 56 1
Quinnipiac University Poll. April 14-19, 2010. N=1,930 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 2.2.
“Do you approve or disapprove of the federal health care overhaul?”
4/14-19/10 Approve Disapprove Unsure
4/14-19/10 39 53 8
Republicans 9 86 5
Democrats 75 17 9
Independents 36 56 8
Sorry for the mess, it looked better before i uploaded. I understand that firms can poll to get the numbers they think will make their point, but it seems that with CNN, USA Today, Pew and Fox all saying the samee thing it means something. So what if kaiser is wrong and the others are right. Should we not at least listen to the other side instead of dismissing them as radicals? Do not the voices of the majority or close to majority (if kaiser is right) deserve to be heard? I’m not talking about the politicians I am however, talking about everyday folks like the ones who voted in MO.
When did we in this country stop listening to the majority in favor of the minority?
When I was in high school many many eons ago, a majority of people were doing drugs and getting stoned. I don’t think a large number of people believing in something when they have access to poor data convinces me to agree with them. Facts alone determine how I make my decision. If you wish to lay out the reasons you feel this is the wrong course of action, I am listening. But in the past the choices seem to be doing nothing or “Obamacare”, and the system is truly broken. This doesn’t necessary mean the action taken was right but inaction (the other option) was definitely wrong, and until I see a better option I’m standing behind this one.
PGT, I agree about people’s voices being heard and that is why HCR took more than a year instead of being forced through in a couple of months but IMO there is no other alternative because healthcare is expensive.As an example what would happen if one of those protesting against HCR and paying a penalty got cancer? Since treatment for cancer runs in the 100’s of thousand of dollars it is inconceivable that any US citizen would be able to pay for that healthcare out of his/her own pocket unless wealthy. If there is an affordability issue and that person qualifies for medicaid then you and I pay for that individuals care either through higher taxes or more expensive medical care. Isn’t it right that that individual contribute to the possibility of his/her future medical care either through insurance or a penalty?
I feel there are three choices for healthcare. One is a very capitalistic way where individuals shop and pay for their own coverage including people over 65 and the poor. The second is a very liberal way of government run healthcare for everyone and the third is something in the middle which is what this HCR is. The HCR bill is far from perfect but for people to cry about not having the freedom to avoid having healthcare is extremely stupid. Shit happens and insurance is important.
Apologies to anyone offended by the 4 letter word. I meant to write s***:)
To everyone – I am not against health care reform. You have made many good points. I would label the past abuses by insurance companies when they drop a sick person as an atrocity. Not having a gov’t option for sick children, like medicaid, is unamerican. But telling a healthy 27 yo who works out and is saving money to buy their first house that they will instead have to spend that money on insurance is wrong. We know that cigarettes are bad for people, yes? Yet we don’t ban them, we tax them. Why does the Gov need to decide what is good for me.
The other thing that concerns me is the math used to come up with a 143 bill deficit reduction. Especially in the wake of the president admitting that the medicare doctor cuts (in the bill as savings) wouldn’t be a good idea (oh really). If they take away those cuts alone it cancels out any reduction to the deficit. How many other uh-ohs are there in the bill.
As an actual researcher, I don’t put much stock into most polls. The vast majority are done badly. The vast majority of polls conducted by news organizations are crap. You can add Rasmussen to that too, by the way. They are the worst. I attended a conference where the folks at NORC just about ripped the Rasmussen folks a new one over the systematic bias they introduced into their results because of their method.
The KFF and NORC (not to be confused with the marketing group that CNN uses for their polling) use polling techniques that are more similar to real research methods. They are still polls, so I usually take what they say with a grain of salt.
Generally, the Pew is considered to do very good research and Gallup’s polling method is usually considered pretty solid. Not enough for my taste, but I’m a real researcher and we generally don’t like polls at all.
In short, I wasn’t surprised by the reliance on polls for the points that were being made by PatriotGST. I would even caution Iron Knee from relying on the KFF poll (although their survey research is excellent).
Opinion polls have limited utility when discussing policy. If you had asked people about their opinion around anything from whether the colonies should secede from England to whether women should have a right to a no fault divorce to whether African Americans should have the right to vote, you are going to find a variety of opinions, including opinions that are internally inconsistent. I prefer to hear an argument in which you explain exactly what is wrong with the legislation based on either logic, values, or facts (and opinion polls do not count as fact, at least for me).
@ Jonah
I agree many people don’t plan for the worst and/or take chances with their health. We could apply that same mentality to many aspects. For instance, we all know that obesity lends itself to greater health risks and that lack of physical fitness doesn’t help either. Do we mandate that all persons wishing to use any govt service (ie public school)meet height/weight standards and pass a physical fitness test? It would be in their interest and for the good of all. It would also lower our health costs, and provide many secondary benefits. Then do we tell people what they can and cannot eat? The list would grow and we would become a nanny state. While I agree there are things people should (in my opinion) do, but we live in a society that values individual rights and freedom, whether we agree with those choices or not. (ie. gay rights)I just don’t think we can apply it to some things and not all.
Using the example of healthy 27 year old, if the healthy 27 year old were to fall down while fixing his roof of his new house and broke his spine and has no problem getting expensive healthcare to fix his spine from anywhere but the US then there is no need to force anyone to get health insurance. I also don’t think that that 27 year old would be too happy if he had to shell out several thousand dollars to fix his spine while having to pay his mortgage since he was not smart enough to get health care insurance.
Insurance is for extreme emergencies. If there were a protective aura around every 27 year old that guarantees that the worst that could happen to them is catching a cold then there would be no need to get insurance. Spending a reasonable amount of money to protect himself and his family from exorbitant healthcare costs should be a no-brainer.
PGT, I think what we have is the moderate approach. Not requiring everyone to carry insurance and giving them this so called freedom of choice while taxing everyone to death to meet the ever increasing health care costs is one way to run healthcare. Another way would be the extreme way where the government mandates that everyone maintain a BMI of < 27 so that healthcare costs are lowered and everyone is healthy. There is no way to provide healthcare to everyone and lower taxes without mandating that everyone carry health insurance or pay a penalty. Pick your poison because its not a perfect world.
Quiz, out of the 3 choices
a) No health care insurance mandate + higher taxes
b) Health care insurance mandate + requirement to maintain < 27 BMI
c) Healthcare insurance mandate + semi nanny state
which do you prefer or if you can think of another way please post your thoughts? Remember the right policy should not tax US citizens too much, should not impede too much on our freedom, and should be beneficial to us.
Starluna makes a great point. The majority of colonists were against the Revolutionary war. I’m sure they all watched Fox News, too. 🙂
Using a primary to gauge voter reaction doesn’t sound like the best idea to me. Looking through the AP Results for Missouri’s statewide primaries, the Prop C vote for yes almost matched the total votes cast in the Republican primaries and the total votes cast for no almost matched the votes for Dems in statewide primaries. Why hold such an important vote on a primary when you get the most stringent partisans on both sides? Not only that, but (Unless Missouri allows Independents to vote in primaries) you basically remove the Independent voice who would have had to gone out of their way to cast a single vote on Prop C.
@ Jonah, Good points and very valid. I understand how the pools work, the more the less. I still believe for the 27yo it should be his choice. Apparently, there are millions of 27yo who make it to 38 when they eventually choose to buy ins. without falling off the roof. I understand Ins. helps for the small minority with bad balance.
@ IK – Yes on the colonist, but aren’t they glad they were wrong now. There were also sometimes more colonists fighting with the British then the Colonials. The remnants of those forces formed the liberal party. (just kidding, but I couldn’t resist).
@ Bard – Yes the majority of the yes voters were repub. I believe about 90,000 or 15% of the yes voters were non-repubs. I don’t know how many of those could have been Ind or Dem.
There’s a liberal party? Where can I sign up? 🙂
Understand that those who can’t afford health insurance are going to get government subsidized health insurance. The 28 year old out of work will get insurance. Of course, if he is totally out of work and doesn’t file a tax return, he will not be penalized. these are the 5% that aren’t going to be covered.
And understand, every time you purchase something from a United States company or do business with them, you are paying for their health insurance. Get to “single payer” health and goods from this country should drop and be more competitive with foreign country.
You have the person checking in the supermarket who is a college student on parents’ insurance’ yet we are paying for the group insurance. Person check, low income, child, already on insurance, etc.
Single payer eliminates that.
The tax return tells how much the person should pay.
My client making 80K married and just didn’t bother to sign his wife up for insurance in Massachusetts. So he paid a big fine which goes to pay for those that can’t afford insurance. Now he has her on.
This is all because insurance costs have gotten out of hand. And hospital care is worse because the nurses are laid off to line the pockets of the rich.
I hear you Ebdoug, but I think it’s more complicated then that. Take for instance the nurses being laid off in hospitals. Most of the hospitals in my area are non-profits, so I don’t see how any rich pockets are getting lined, i think that skyrocketing costs are causing business decisions to be made. We are then faced with a quandery, if the gov’t regulates health care prices and ins costs, then how long before it impacts the #’s of doctors and nurses and quality of care? We know that for instance, Canadians and others on socialized medicine travel to the US for medical services they cannot readily get in their system. Obama himself recognized that the 20% cut to Dr’s fees in medicare (that was in the bill as savings) was a bad idea and would chase them out of medicare.
What about tort reform to lower mal practice insurance. Or if the gov’t takes over and runs our health care, how will it survive the law suits? What about college costs and the 100’s of thousands Dr’s pay to get educated.
Since most politicians including the president did not read the entire 2400 page bill before voting or signing it,I just don’t trust whats in it is the best course of action.
We needed health care reform, but what is in this bill? It’s a huge comlicated issue. I’m not against the single payer concept, or all in philosphy. The US is recognized as a world leader in medicine, research and medical technology and it was all accomplished under the “old” system. Are we positive that this bill and these changes will not change that? I cannot answer affirmatively, can anyone else?
Basically we are back to that 28 year old and the ponzi scheme of medical care. he goes without or he is forced to get “major medical” Now if your child is in a coma on “major medical” won’t you and your relatives come up with the deductible while the insurance kicks in the 2 million? When I was down and out, being a nurse (with small children so I didn’t work full time) I had major medical. Most don’t think about. House burns, loose everything, your choice that you had no insurance. Have a major medical catastrophe, I’m paying for that, and I don’t even know you, because you didn’t get the $100 pre month major medical or get coverage for low income people.
I was single payer health my whole life until last September when I went on Medicare. Still single payer for C&D on Medicare.
Alternatively: Hospitals can have the right to refuse care to anyone without health insurance. That would save us money and should lower premiums. Right now, as I understand it, hospitals can’t refuse care.
Tort reform. After reading John Edwards book on his four cases of neglect in hospitals, I would have trouble with tort reform. Or the case where the boy went in the hospital to have a protrusion on his abodmen reduced for looks. Mother stayed with him all night, kept telling the staff something was wrong, called the doctor who came, said nothing was wrong. Boy bled to death through neglect.
Same think happened in our ER. Traveling ER doctor. “Damn him.” when the boy threw up the medicine to calm him down after a football injury. got it in him. Sent him home. His mother took him back in the a.m. “I feel like I’m going to die,” in the car on the way, and he did.
OK, I think we’re moving closer to a solution. We don’t need congress. lets you and I get together and solve this things. The Major medical issue could work if it was in the affordable range AND we educate people on the benefits. Those that can’t afford it of course will get subsidized.
On the Tort, I agree there are many tragedies that occur and patients and families should be compensated. There are also so many erroneous or minimal suits with ambulance chasing lawyers. My wife was sued a number a years back for 1/2 million dollars after an accident by a women claiming a back injury. The policeman noted the force of the impact was so slight that our son asleep in the back car seat never woke up. The worst thing you could do to a Doctor, nurse etc is take away their license and in the case of extreme negligence take away the hospitals license.
We’re getting closer to solutions for our congress.