Americans are still sharply divided over President Barack Obama’s vision of healthcare overhaul, but they’re starting to come around — again – on the so-called public option, so says a new Washington Post/ABC News poll published on Monday.
Fifty-seven percent of all Americans now favor a government-run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers while 40 percent are opposed, according to the poll.
That’s up from 52 percent support in mid-August, but still down from 62 percent in June.
What’s happened since the congressional summer recess when anger over the prospect of a public option heated town hall meetings across the country?
The public option (a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers) is still favored by Obama and liberal Democrats as a way to increase competition and cut rising costs.
There’s still plenty of opposition from Republicans and other critics who argue that a public option would be a government takeover and could drive private insurance companies out of business.
In the Senate, lawmakers are trying to craft a single healthcare bill out of two separate proposals — one with the public option and one without. All three pending House bills include a public option.
Some numbers from the Washington Post/ABC poll:
- 57 percent of Americans now favor a public insurance option, 40 percent are opposed
- 56 percent favor a provision mandating all Americans to buy insurance
- 45 percent favor the broad outlines of the proposals now moving in Congress, 48 percent are opposed
- seven in 10 Democrats back the plan, almost nine in 10 Republicans oppose it
- 52 percent of Independents are against proposed reforms, 42 percent are in favor
For more Reuters political coverage click here.
Photo credit: Reuters/Hyungwon Kang; Reuters/Jonathan Ernst ( Pharmacist Sonya Safaie at work in Great Falls, Virginia; /Copy of House healthcare bill HR 3200 )
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Sam, you are wasting your time trying to get TC to see the light. He is incapable of honest debate, as I have shown over and over again. The rest of us know what the truth is.
- Posted by getplaningI didn’t say “individual” trees, you made that up. But I can see you are petty and this will be the last time I respond to you on this thread. I do not like petty people and you are one who will stoop to those levels, just to prove you are smarter than everyone else when in reality you are just petty…
You have done nothing to disprove my point. If the polls were accurate, then we would have health care “reform’ already. I see the Harry Reid is about to “force” a public option on the majority who do not want it. In fact, 54 percent don’t want anything to do with any plan mucking about in congress,
The fact of the matter is public option or not, the people are not in favor of the democratic version of health reform. That makes the public option a false argument because since the majority of Americans do not want any version of the administration or congresses health care “fix”, that means it doesn’t matter what they put in it…the people don’t want it. That’s a fact and not open to discussion. I follow the only poll that is consistently correct (proven)…Rasmussen. You can go and see the truth about health care there.
Have a nice day, you will now be arguing with yourself….I really don’t have time for petty people….
- Posted by TCTC-It’s “the forest for the trees”–don’t know how you’d get a forest between individual trees. anyway…
The American legislative process and the electoral process are both examples of representative democracy–in both instances, representatives for the people stand
in to make the final decision. So again, this is not a democracy but a representative democracy, and the will of the people, while pandered to at time, is not always
respected. This–not pudding–explains the disconnect between the polls and the pols.
Alexander Hamilton helped to set up the electoral college precisely because he didn’t trust “the mob” and thought a few wise men would make more rational decisions–doesn’t that sounds elitist?
The problem in my opinion is that there is too much distance between politicians and the people. This includes lobbyists acting on behalf of special interests
- Posted by Sam(such as hospitals and insurance companies) and a corporate media that is more interested in accurately reporting what people think about balloon boy than what people think about health care reform.