February 23, 2010
By Scott Hensley

What do Americans want from Washington on health overhaul?

Opinion is evenly split on overhaul legislation, with 43 percent of Americans in favor of passage and 43 percent opposed, according to the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll.

But ask people about specifics, and the picture changes quite a bit. More than two-thirds of people favor important planks in the administration's overhaul plan.

Oh, really? What do they like?

Ask people how important reforming the way health insurance works is, and 76 percent say it's "extremely" or "very important." Even a majority of Republicans--64 percent--see things that way.

Other planks that do well: providing insurance tax credits for small businesses, closing the Medicare "doughnut hole" for prescription drugs and creating insurance marketplaces for the purchase of individual plans.

A majority of Americans blame the politicians for the lack of action. Some 59 percent say the delays are a result of both parties "playing politics," Kaiser says. And in an ominous sign ahead of mid-term elections, almost three in five of the people polled said they would be either disappointed or angry if nothing gets done.

Who knows if those findings will have any effect on the legislators convening Thursday for President Obama's health summit. Results of other polls rounded up by the Washington Post have been showing for a while that Americans like some of the particulars of contained in the administration's proposal, even if by some measures the nation remains split on the passage of legislation that would make them a reality.

Article:
www.npr.org...

Kaiser health Tracking Poll Febuary 2010
Random sample of 1,201 adults ages 18 and older.
The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points
kff.org...

As Democratic and Republican legislators prepare for the upcoming summit on health care, Kaiser’s February Health Tracking Poll shows that a frustrated public also remains divided by partisanship when it comes to existing legislative proposals, but that there remain a number of individual provisions of the health reform legislation that are popular across party lines.

Americans have mixed views of how quickly and how comprehensively to move on reform, but relatively few hope the matter is dropped altogether.

Overall, more Americans say they will be either disappointed or angry if Congress decides to stop working on health care reform than say they will feel happy or relieved. The survey also suggests that the public stands ready to blame both parties about equally for any result that displeases them.

* BTW this thread was mistakenly deleted and reposted. Apologies to the early comers who posted some intelligent responses that are now gone. I'd welcome you to repost your thoughts.

[edit on 23-2-2010 by maybereal11]

[edit on 23-2-2010 by maybereal11]

[edit on 23-2-2010 by maybereal11]

More from the poll…

The one thing that Americans of all partisan stripes seem to agree on is that the delays in passing health care reform are more about “both sides playing politics” than about actual policy disagreements. Overall, roughly six in ten people held this view of the roadblocks to passage, including a majority of Democrats, Republicans and political independents.

I have been waiting for a current poll that asked non-slanted or leading questions about how Americans feel about healthcare reform and here it is.

This poll confirms what I have suspected all along.

The majority of Americans are NOT against healthcare reform, they are frustrated with the manner in which it has been delayed and with only certain components of the bill.

That includes independents, republicans and democrats!

Who will pay the price in the midterms? Both Dems and the GOP.

Where do both left and right leaning Americans as well as independents agree on healthcare reform?

1. Insurance reform (ie, guaranteed issue, eliminating lifetime
benefit caps)
2. Tax credits to small businesses
3. Health insurance exchanges
4. Helping close the Medicare doughnut hole
5. Expanding high risk insurance pools

I’d be interested in hearing from the regulars in this debate concerning these numbers.


[edit on 23-2-2010 by maybereal11]

Again with this. LISTEN/READ

It isn't that folks are agaisnt Health Reform. They are against the way the Dems went and are still going about it. (without getting into all the details).

To most of us, if only 25-30 million are uninsured, then do a program like Medicare etc for them. NOT CHANGE THE WHOLE Fn COUNTY AROUND.

This has nothing to do about Health Care Reform. It has to do with seizing power. If they really wanted us to have proper health care, they would give us the same they got (meaning the Senate) and they would not have to do specail bribes to get some states to go along.

As of today FORTY FOUR states have or are working on legislation that will outlaw Federally mandated insurance etc. It's called STATES RIGHTS.

Until they start talking Tort reform and proper payments plans, this is dead. And, I dare say, if the Dems keep this up and jam it down our throats, it will be the end for the Dem party. Mark my words

Originally posted by anon72
Again with this. LISTEN/READ

It isn't that folks are agaisnt Health Reform. They are against the way the Dems went and are still going about it.

You mean to say the Dems AND the GOP right? Because that is what the poll shows beyond any margin.

(without getting into all the details)..

And that is how every GOP reform alternative begins....

BTW - Details are neccessary. The devil is in them.

Until they start talking Tort reform and proper payments plans, this is dead. And, I dare say, if the Dems keep this up and jam it down our throats, it will be the end for the Dem party. Mark my words

This poll is accurate...and if nothing gets done on healthcare reform it will be the end of not just the Dems...but also the GOP...and also the middle class as insurance and pharmaceutical companies continue to jack up prices beyond any measure of decency.

[edit on 23-2-2010 by maybereal11]

I think Obama could backdoor the Health Care bill through.

By taking money away from the current Medicare, medicaid.

US healthcare is internationally known and recognised as a world leader in healthcare. This is probably due to the US medical school system being the most difficult: not only is medical school a postgraduate degree in the US but the course is one of the most rigorous in terms of knowledge and testing. There have to be heavy incentives to go through all of this, as well as knowing that all the debts accumulated in at least 7 years of study are going to be paid for.

The good pay and good medicine in a civilised country all serve to attract the best of the foreign best who have to study especially for the USMLE exams (which takes a significant amount of money typically) to qualify for working in the US.

All this leads me to believe that the standards of doctors attracted are going to rapidly decline if you cut their pay. It's not the easiest jobs of any level and adding all these additional hurdles in the US produces quality doctors but makes it again much more difficult. The intelligent have options: they could equally go into the finance sector or perhaps law and make much more money, much more rapidly in jobs that're psychologically and relatively less of a draining experience.

Criticisms of the private healthcare industry are the consequences of consumerism and "politicorporate" culture. The current, private healthcare system, in my opinion, is not working. The reasons are simple, business men at insurance and pharmaceutical companies call all the shots and supercede both you and your doctor. Due to relaxed regulations now, insurance companies can choose not to pay for procedures and treatments recommended and performed by your doctor after the fact so you're left holding the bill. And because it is privatized, it is all run like a business where repeat business and addictive treatments are not only tolerated, but encouraged.

There's definitely growing pill-popping culture in America: If you're sad, there's a pill. If you're too fat, there's a pill. If you eat a poor diet, there's a whole rack of pills at the supermarket. If you watch American TV, every commercial break is packed with "Ask your doctor about..." followed up with a list of side-effects rattled off like an auctioneer. Doctors get flooded with patients wasting their time for prescriptions to cure "erectile dysfunction" and "restless leg syndrome". Making everyone reliant on their services is the fantasy of corporate healthcare providers – so like any good (dis)honest business, they sell you needs rather than solutions to real problems.

We can't expect the government to be our only safety-net; but just the same, the last thing we want is a whole population of pill-popping hypochondriacs. So what type of healthcare scheme can solve these problems? Ideally, we can dream about a non-corporate private health care system, in which the poor can rely on their communities for support rather than the government, and everyone receives the high quality of care that private competition provides. But given the socio-economic climate we have to work with, we need to work on correcting the problems with the systems we have.

It would be overly presumptuous to try and propose a fix-all here, but we have a pretty good idea what the first step ought to be for the public and private sectors alike: Take control away from the corporations and bureaucrats and put it back into the hands of doctors and nurses. They care about our health, not our provider, and certainly aren't going to work overtime just to write Viagra prescriptions. It won't solve all our problems, but it would be a move towards a healthier lifestyle all-around.

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not sustainable and they are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation or they will bankrupt us.

While we clearly need health care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and moves us much closer to a complete governmental takeover of our health care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the exact opposite direction-toward less governmental control and more individual empowerment.

The fact is, people like big symbols instead of reality, and so supporting "free health care" and a bill no one has even read outside of maybe a few people in Congress takes precedence over reasoned discussion on important topics.

We're already knee-deep in an economic mess, and since money isn't free, someone has to fund this. Why rush this through, especially as public opinion is ever so slowly swaying toward a more reasonable solution? Also consider that we can't fund health care at the moment, even while President Obama risks his "man of the people" reputation by having to increase taxes.

If you want to fix health care the best way to start is to get Government out of it. Everybody is whining about Medicare and Medicaid being broke. The reason why they are broke is that about only one dollar in six goes for actual health care, the other five dollars is spent in "administration". All around the country there are buildings full of government employees "administering" Medicare and Medicaid.