Health Reform: NBC Polls America and Gets it 60% Correct

Yesterday, today, and I predict this coming Sunday, pundits will fight over the latest NBC poll that shows that the idea of a public health insurance option is in a dead heat. The hand-wringers from both sides will speak of an "evenly divided public" in regards to the public option. However the dead heat exists if you only consider the thoughts of 60% of the US population, which NBC apparently decided to do. When you look at the sample it turns out that only about 20% of the polls respondents where people of color. Currently approximately 40% of Americans are from ethnic minority backgrounds.

While there is a huge story here about how the insurance industry has spent millions to kill the idea of new cost-efficiency based competition and has not been able to gain ground in that effort, the media will see the NBC headline declaring a "plurality" of people against the public option and not read much further. Any poll watcher will tell you, considering the margin of error, that in fact the poll carries the same statistical results as the NBC poll that was taken 30 days and 60 million insurance industry dollars ago. The idea of a public option is resilient, and that is even when you over-sample the thoughts of 60% of the US population, which the NBC poll does.

While NBC touts its intellectual vigor and news credentials it has done a great disservice to its viewers and the entire country by portraying a poll as legitimate that undervalues the opinion of 40% of Americans. Political experts as well as marketing gurus would not base any rational opinion driven decision on a poll that is more reflective of the NBC punditry than the make up of the American people. The poll carries some importance in that it indicates that the targeted audience of Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks has not budged, but it is hardly the whole picture.

According to the Commonwealth Fund in the prosperous year of 2005 Hispanic and African Americans far outranked Anglos in the total pool of uninsured. All indications are that the disparity has widened.

So NBC went to a group that is the best insured in the country and even THEY are evenly split on the public option. I can't wait for NBC to ask the other 40% of America what they think. I would hope that the Administration and the Democratic party are anxious for a fuller picture as well.

Mario Solis-Marich can be heard on Am760 in Denver and at www.GotoMario.com Monday through Friday from 4 PM to 7 PM MT.

Follow Mario Solis-Marich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/marioradio

Comments

[Rogan]

Seriously: why hasn't anyone, or why isn't anyone, polling only the SICK people? WE are the people who USE the health care system.

If someone were to conduct a poll of voting citizens who have chronic medical conditions, like me, I think the numbers for support of a public option would be staggering.

[AverageJoe-1]

I do not understand the logic of establishing public co-ops or the goal of 1 per state. Instead of minimizing market segmentation, it only makes it worse by bringing less qualified new entrants with blank checks to the market. I am not sure but the actual skills to operate a co-op is significant and something that will surely lead to scandals and issues of political ineptness of running those programs in several years.

The true question is of how efficient will a Public Option Plan be on the scale of the U.S.-I have yet to hear from anyone of how it can work on the scale of the U.S.? None of the news media is seriously informing us of the information and facts and spends more time worrying about the wrong points of the debate. I don't care about the 'crazies at the town hall meetings'. I only care to know about the detailsof how it will work and benefit me and my family....­.

[ptfcNassoc]

It's the same thing that was going on during the election things had to be a "dead heat" and "neck and neck" so that they can keep viewers watching. If something looks like its one sided and a done deal the interest is gone. It's about ratings and money not journalism. During the election they would sku data as well and everything was all so "close", until convienently like the last week before the election they had to back track and cover their a** so when the O.bama blow occured (and in presidential election terms it was so) they wouldn't look too bad.

[mqa]

Not to mention that the survey was conducted in English only, so those Hispanics that were included (about 10%) are English D om in a n t/Accultur­ated.... This underrepresentation of Hispanics who are Spanish D om in a nt, which account for approx. 40% of the US Hispanic population, further compounds the issues with this study. This group are even more likely to be uninsured.

FYI Spanish D om in a nts does not mean that they are ill e gal, just that they speak Spanish only or mostly.

[force fed up]

NBC owned by GE. I'm sure you could dig into the financial holdings of GE and find a few healthcare and insurance companies in their folds. If not, I'm sure some of the sitting board members have ties to healthcare and insurance companies.

Corporate MSM is trying to manipulate the truth. People were scared that any sort of Government controlled media would turn into propaganda but NO ONE even considered that corporations would turn the MSM into pure propaganda.

Now its a fact and people are still in denial of it.

[evekendall]

Here's what you can do:

Answer Robert Reich's call to
MARCH ON WASHINGTON
Sunday, September 13th
to support the public option.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/18/robert-reich-calls-for-ma_n_262310.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26224.html

“We won't get a public option, or anything close to it, unless people who feel strongly about it MAKE A RACKET,” Reich said.

So...
MAKE A RACKET!
Go to other sites and post this info.
Go to townhalls with your signs.
Email your family and friends.
Demand the public option from your elected officials.

Write your senators and representatives:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

Write to the White House:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Donate:
http://www.actblue.com/page/theytookthepledge
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/19/public-option-fundraiser_n_262955.html

Sign the petition sponsored by Senators Durbin, Leahy and Schumer:
http://citizensforapublicoption.com/

Stand with Dr. Howard Dean.
Almost 405,000 people have signed his petition:
http://standwithdrdean.com/

Sign every other petition you can get your hands on.
Google the words petition public option for a list of petitions to sign:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=petition+public+option&aq=f&aqi=&fp=e7e374c314de6a77
http://current.com/items/90555426_sign-these-petitions-to-support-a-public-health-option.htm

Copy this and pass it on.
And go to Washington, DC on September 13th if you can.
Millions of lives depend on what we do.

[Cil]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Come on folks, evekendall took the time to get you the above
informatio­n.........­..........­It is now UP TO YOU!

Show that YOU appreciate HER EFFORTS on your behalf! You
need to get back to your grassroots mentality, remember how it
worked during the Presidential Election?

Get out there and knock on doors, talk to your relatives, friends,
acquaintance, neighbours, for heaven sake talk to you enemies
if that is what it takes to ensure that you get Health Care Reform
in its best possible package...­..........­........Yo­u deserve nothing
less!

Start making some noise! let YOUR VOICES BE HEARD, don't
let those town hall disruptors drown out your voices! President
Obama and the Dems who support this reform with a sound
PUBLIC OPTION, cannot do this by themselves, they need you
to go out there and GET THE MESSAGE OUT!

[AverageJoe-1]

I think that we need Public Option because it is the only sound option. However, do people truly understand the impact of what it means to them and their families. I do not and I have been trying to understand the details. Most Public Option Plans work overseas because of budgeting, allocation of resources and services, and use of comparative analysis studies. Also those plans work because their citizens are willing to sacrifice to share for the common good which I am not sure will happen in the U.S. I think of the state of West Virignia attempting to establish those Wellness Plans to combat preventive conditions / diseases and associated costs of bad lifestyles for Medicaid. And it was sued for discrimatory practices---go figure....­...Do and will Americans accept 'big government' telling us to lose weight, excercise, don't smoke, and live healthy as one of the best way to control health costs in general? If not, how does the prevention aspect of the Health Care plan work?

I am more concerned of how the funding of Public Option will cause on job creation or job loss because at the end of the day somebody has got to pay for it. It might hurt alot of small businesses with the payroll tax requirements when they are barely surviving right now....

[hoopesaz]

Thoughtful post. I too am unsure how it would work or if it would be viable. I'm not opposed to everyone having insurance. I'm not necessarily opposed to a public option. I am opposed to signing on to pie-in-the-sky ideal that has very little thought behind the administration of the plan.

Create a thorough analysis. Include 100 or so use cases to show what happens to real people when the public option goes live. Provide some details about what we can REALLY expect to pay and what we can REALLY expect big companies to do with their current health plans.

No more yelling...­just put it all down in writing so I can see it.

[legalgirl]

Keep up the good work, Mario! Love the radio show, too.

[tompoe]

So the question is, would you rather pay three, four, five times as much for your health care premium in the U.S., or pay something less than $300 a month to the government for the finest universal health care in the world? In France, one of 36 countries that provide superior health care for every one of their citizens, the tax burden has a long way to go before it "taxes them to death". Here, in America, we don't honor the right of the individual to health care. On top of that, we kill tens of thousands each year by "premiuming them to death". NBC is a corporate media shill. Their polls are fabrications and do not reflect the intelligence of the people they poll, but rather do reflect the low IQ's of the advertisers that they shill for.

[4real]

thank you for exposing NBC for this. The debate in the media over this issue is money driven and bias.