Without Public Option, Enthusiasm for Health Care Reform...Collapses

[murdoch]

Source: Rasmussen

Just 34% of voters nationwide support the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats if the so-called “public option” is removed. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 57% oppose the plan if it doesn't include a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

<...>

The most dramatic impact is a sharp decline in enthusiastic support. Without the public option, only nine percent (9%) Strongly support the legislation. The earlier poll found 26% Strongly in favor of it.

That enthusiasm gap is especially significant since the percentage of those opposed to the legislation has consistently been higher. Last week’s poll found 44% Strongly opposed to the reform legislation. If the public option is dropped, 37% remain Strongly opposed.

Read more: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics...

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This is the main point. Even without the public option - the Republicans still hate this bill. As Lawrence O'Donnell says on Olbermann, if they get the public option canned, next they go after employer mandates, and then individual mandates.

I want an NHS like England has. That is said to be unfeasible, so we push for *single payer*, Medicare for all. But they say we have to compromise even more, and settle for a public option. Now some are beginning to even want to give that away (and as O'Donnell said, if they cave on that then mandates will be next to go).

[BlueIdaho]

1. Never trust an Assmussen poll.

I don't care what they say - they are a tool of the neo-conservative fascist state movement.

[Warpy]

2. No shit, Sherlock. Everybody knows what the problem is

and it's a bunch of middleman leeches sucking money out of us and then failing to provide what they said they will if we get sick.

The public option means basically we insure ourselves and the government supplies the bureaucracy to make sure it pays our claims. It bypasses the greedy CEOs who see every payout to a doctor as dollars getting away from them.

If there is no public option, it's not reform. That's the bottom line.

[Oregone]

3. "The public option means basically we insure ourselves"

Unless you are one of the hundred of millions of Americans that doesn't qualify to make it past the firewall.

[Walk away]

5. +1

[WriteDown]

4. Forget NHS....

Give me more of what Sweden has.

[jberryhill]

6. Here you go....

[WriteDown]

7. You are a good person.

[Grinchie]

8. If that headline isn't an understatement...

the DLC/Obama have burned their bridges with me already. They have proven that they are nothing more than the same Corporate fascists that we saw in the last administration, and they brought it all upon themselves.

Yeah, Yeah, I can hear the Cheerleaders say "You have to fight and let Obama know!" or that "He's playing a masterful chess game", yadda yadda yadda. Well, if he doesn't know already, then he really is as stupid as the DLC masters that control this administration.

It's not that I don't like Obama, but his general spineless, Corporate lovin modus operandi is not the change we can believe in.

I think other people are finally piling up his campaign promises on one side of the scale, and the giveaways to the DLC/Corporate sector and see that the scale is tipped in favor of Corporate America.

It's like the DLC thinks that they can win a second term if they just reinflate the bubble economy again.

I don't buy it. I will not support this administration further.

[Iowa]

15. I agree. n/t

[Carni]

9. Without the public Option I have ZERO enthusiasm

My worst nightmare would be having to buy into mandatory private insurance at today's current price levels--you can't eat health insurance (or sleep under it either)

[northernlights]

11. that's when it's time to opt out

go on strike. pay to not be insured. if enough people opt out, their whole mandatory private insurance robbery fails.

[bkkyosemite]

10. I believe all these polls are wrong. Then my Republican niece says the doctors who go to college all

these years won't make any profit if we have a public option. Well I gave her the spiel.

[xchrom]

12. kick

[regnaD kciN]

13. The problme with this poll...

...is that it essentially says "people are strongly opposed to any health care reform plan, and even more so when the public option is removed." If it showed a majority supporting it with a public option, and opposing it without one, it would be a very different message.

[Bluenorthwest]

14. That is because lots of people want Medicare for all

and do not really 'support' this bs at all. It is the best mediocre minds in DC can muster, that is the best that can be said. Tepid, resigned support is what you get when you give away the farm before you sit to negotiate. They refused to do what would have brought them enthusiastic support. They went with the plan no one really likes.

[mvd]

16. I agree with Dennis (as usual,) but..

I'm willing to get a bill with a strong public option through and improve it. I don't want Obama to fail in this.

[ProudDad]

19. Well, you have a long wait

None of the bills in Congress (except HR676) has a "strong public option"...

[FreakinDJ]

17. No Shit Sherlock - 3.3% of GDP going to Greedy Insurance Cos

[lovuian]

18. They WILL do something now or later

Health care can not eat up GDP at its rate

Rates rising 22 % a year
with prices skyricketing

it can't continue and they know it

the longer they wait the more the disaster awaits