Health Care Reform Support Has Increased Since Summer

The anti-reform town hall anger that dominated the health care reform debate appears to have ebbed. Support for health care reform increased in September after falling over the summer, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans now believe that tackling health care reform is more important than ever -- up from 53 percent in August. The proportion of Americans who think their families would be better off if health reform passes is up six percentage points (42% versus 36% in August), and the percentage who think that the country would be better off is up eight points (to 53% from 45% in August).

A Politico article at the end of August declared that Democrats had "lost" the month on health care by not being prepared for tendentious town halls. "The question now is whether they can win September," the authors wrote. Polls like this one suggest that the tide has turned.

 

 

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Comments

[texastrixie]

I don't know if I believe this. Many of the people I talk to have questions and reservations about a public health option. The most common response I get is that, "I have good health care now, so I'm not for changing anything. Maybe when I don't have health care, I'll think differently, but not right now." This is coming from people who supported Obama and still do to a great extent (the bailout for the banks without fixing the problems has soured more people on Obama than I care to know). I think it is the uncertainty of the plan's effects that bothers people the most. If the Democrats had simply said, extend Medicare to anyone under 65 who needs it or wants it on a sliding scale of payments, I think it would have been a slamdunk. Then the Republicans would have spent all their time arguing on why someone who makes a gazillion dollars a year should pay five times what a person making minimum wage would for the same health care.

[AnnfromCA]

Kaiser poll? OK.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Gallup shows declining support, even after Obama went on TV for hours and hours.

[den1953]

There will be a bill but it will only boost the insurance companies and drug companies they'll label it a heath reform but it is a insurance welfare bill!

[comicpro]

Palin/Cantor 2012

[jb578261]

Is that supposed to be a joke? Palin wouldn't even have a chance in a Republican primary. Get real.

[comicpro]

COMICPRO screen name.........Here is your helmet made of tinfoil.

[Tommygun264]

Oh, please, Please, PLEASE, YES! Palin is the best thing to happen to the Democratic Party since Cheney.

[spartacus7502]

Palin/Beck 2012!!

The Greatest Show on earth!

[sstrickland]

only in our dreams........

[Billl]

No one except the health care industry has been, “waiting for years”, for the mess that is being foisted off on us now as reform.

Health care can be fixed for people, employers and taxpayers quickly, and save hundreds of billions of dollars annually only if the President and legislators would allow the use of what President Obama has called “government’s unfair advantages”, to be used to pay for, using a sales tax, and deliver, through VA style government hospitals, high quality low cost health care, as part of the reform solution.

Two choices should be offered to everyone to use either; free public care, sales tax funded, from a new national health system, no insurance, no co pays, free period, or alternatively to use privately purchased private care.

Employers who select public care for their employees would not be required to pay for or have any further involvement with health care.

Private unlimited choices could be purchased, and always free public care would be available.

[Dbos]

Teabeggers = urban renewal, most of them still haven't found their way home.

[wdw505]

the only way any bill of value will pass is if they do line item by line item on the things most can agree on.

address the following one by one

Insurance companies may not use preexisting conditions when pricing

Insurance companies may not drop you if you get sick as long as the premium is paid

No insurance caps

pricing should be done by group but not age, race

[wdw505]

so what if asked do i want reform even i would say yes.........it does not mean that i want the crap offered to date

[Rebecca]

You want to know why? I'll tell you why. Most of the dam.n hollering came from the south. College football just started back up so they lost interest in their summer sport of town hall hollering. Now it's back to a normal fall routine.

[Trollstakeyourmeds]

And let's not forgot Nascar. Heehehe.

[riversideliberal]

I wonder if people will remember, 6 months from now, their own shouting and hysteria and outrage at the prospect of the government improving their access to affordable healthcare?

Will they remember, and reflect on, how FOX et al tried to persuade them that the Democrats wanted to kill granny, take away their insurance, turn American socialist, and so on?

Will they recognize their own role, as shills and mobs, in weakening health care reform?

Or will they just be glad they have the prospect of better health care when the plan kicks in?

[MJinCanada]

This week our alternative newspaper offered a retrospective of the brief battle to pass universal health care in my province of Saskatchewan back in 1962.

There was a considerable amount of noise and protest back then, which got more media attention than the majority of citizens who wanted it (just like in the US now). There were nasty anonymous phone calls and nasty, even threatening, signs on politicians' lawns. And there was a doctors' strike, backed by the AMA (cold war days, of course), which lasted a mere 23 days before doctors remembered the Hippocratic oath and clued in that the government would pay the bills more reliably than many patients could.

And within weeks of the bill passing, the protest faded. Within a year, many had "forgotten" that they'd been out there with stupid signs. The sky hadn't fallen, obviously, and they didn't want to hear any more "told you so's." Stupidity does have a shelf life.

[comicpro]

Not in the USA it does not! Stupid is generational!!!

[deepfreezevideo]

There were no camcorders then, or citizen journalists.
There are now.

[kemah]

Wait until immigration reform gets started, then you will real fire works.
The right will be speaking in tongues, LOL, The town hollers will really get off. They are super racist. I know because I know a few of them. I worked for a homeless organization, most of those poor whites are racist and listen to right wing radio. They smoke, drink, and play the lottery.

[ForObamaInDallas]

If they start speaking in tongues someone needs to yell at them to speak English or get out! :D

[rascalish]

Sane thinking Americans saw the following in August/Sept.

Teabaggers calling for revolution
Seniors on Medicare saying keep the government out of medicare
Guns at teabagging events
Republicans defending medicare saying there will be no changes to it
The President being compared to hitler

The list goes on. If you ask me middle America saw the ugly hypocrisy and said enough. The result was the realization that reform is needed.

[Genep34]

After the tea baggers become the biggest laughingstock in America the Insurance companies will take the title of the most hated industry, while the republic party will be the most despised organization in 50 years.

[rascalish]

You got it....

Though I'd say the financial & insurance industries are neck & neck for that most odious of industries trophy.

Cheers

[Carolyn LeBeauf]

Every media outlet try to potray,PRESIDENT OBAMA as losing the health care reform fight. With the crazy town hallers, with the birthers, and the tea baggers, as the masses against health care. PRESIDENT OBAMA is a smart man and knew exactly what he was doing. Now they have it out of their systems, they have discovered the lies told by the republicans and insurance companies. Now it's time to get down to business. Anyone who is still agaist health care reform, will always be, anyone against our president will always be, and they will die with that . I have never second guess OUR PRESIDENT, because I realized that we finally had a smart, and compassionate man leading our country, and I don't ever remember having a president like that before and I am 65 years old. So MR.PRESIDENT you go on and take us where we need to be as a country and people.

[J Losh]

Very well said!

[jb578261]

Sadly I have to disagree. These people haven't learned a thing. I just went on vacation with my wife's family who all happen to be staunch republicans. I had to listen to fox news all week and hear her family make remarks about "Obama giving health care to all the illegal Mexicans." I was largely outnumbered so I just kept my mouth. Plus, I'm positive there is no convicing these people of anything anyhow. Sadly, these are not "hicks" or uneducated people. They're simply brainwashed b/c they only watch fox news. There are many more out there like them. How do we solve the problem??? I haven't a clue.....

[AlaskanWannaB]

I agree with you. Most of these people, as the racists they are, are scared that healthcare reform will provide benefits to Blacks and Latinos. They would not be so opposed to it if it only benefited Whites, but they do not want any benefits for Black people. In one news source, they stated that healthcare reform was a scheme by Obama to provide Blacks with reparations for slavery. Again, as long as they (the Whites) are getting benefits, it is okay. But, by God, you better not give any type of assistance to Blacks and Latinos.

They are uneducated, Their ignorance is one reason why I support Obama's suggestion that children go to school longer. Instead of getting married right out of high school, some of my fellow Southerners (born in South Carolina) need to go to college and learn to think for themselves instead of letting alcoholics and druggies like Beck and Limbaugh think for them.

[tm22]

The problem is multigener­ational--a parallel example would be the battered wife syndrome.
These kinds of dysfunctional people/families need this trauma and drama to make their lives cohesive, meaningful because they have no way out of what they are currently involved; this is a syndrome. This batting dems over the head is their way of not looking at the "elephant in the room"...I feel sorry for you but, you need to do a about face and not let your kids around them...this stuff is sort of infectious as the keep it "in the family" for generations as if it's a badge of honor...mental ill of this nature crosses economic and social lines...
(signed, Abigail Vanburen)

[Stuzzadelic]

The GOP plan to allow buying health insurance across state lines will lead to a drop in quality of care and a rationing of services.

[dfranz]

Yes you are right. They will continue price fixing and selective services just as they have for 20 years.

But it's not over yet.

[mimigrammy]

It takes a little time for the "teabaggers" and "looooooooney town hall plants" to brew to full flavor. Now that they have, sensible people are recognizing the horrible taste they leave in ones mouth. Hard to look at, hard to listen to, impossible to imagine them leading our country.