CNN Poll: Support rises (52%) for health insurance mandate

[kpete]

Source: CNN

CNN Poll: Support rises for health insurance mandate


Washington (CNN) - The public is divided over the idea of requiring all Americans to have health insurance, according to a new national survey. But a CNN/ORC International Poll also indicates that support for the proposal, a cornerstone of the 2010 health care reform law, has risen since June.

The survey's Monday release comes as the Supreme Court has agreed to decide the constitutionality of the sweeping health care reform law that was passed by a Democratic Congress and championed by President Barack Obama. The justices made their announcement in a brief order issued on Monday. Oral arguments would likely be held in late February or March, with a ruling by June, assuring the blockbuster issue will become a hot-button political issue in a presidential election year.

According to the poll, 52% of Americans favor mandatory health insurance, up from 44% in June. The survey indicates that 47% oppose the health insurance mandate, down from 54% in early summer.

"The health insurance mandate has gained most support since June among older Americans and among lower-income Americans," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "A majority of independents opposed the measure in June, but 52 percent of them now favor it."

Read more: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/14/cnn-pol...

[Vincardog]

1. If they can mandate that I buy it why can't they provide a public option?

[still_one]

2. Because it would not have passed. "Representative" government is not truly representative /nt

[willhe]

7. they never tried

thats what pissed me off about dems. they should put everything to a vote. make the repulsivecons filibuster not just say they are. i would pass a law that the filibustering party has to stay in chamber

[still_one]

24. It wasn't just the repukes. The likes of LIEberman, bayh, and other scum would have joined with the

repukes either to see the vote never made it to the floor, or that it lost

[karynnj]

33. The problem was not just every Republican voting "NO" - they did that on the billed that passed

The problem was that more than one Democrat publicly said that they would vote against it. You also saw that it took more than a week to get a vote actually completed - even when it was KNOWN we had 60 votes - as they were willing to waive NOTHING. They had no time to waste before Christmas. They even refused to have votes on Friday - the Friday before Christmas - waiving the time limits when Kerry plead with them to led the staff and have the weekend off - rather than wasted for votes whose outcome was already known.

They were there until Christmas Eve, I think. Had they waited, there would have been no health care bill as Scott Brown likely still would have been elected and it would never have passed the Senate. The entire structure could not be done under reconciliation by all accounts. The fact is that the one thing the RW was correct about was that the structure itself easily lends itself to becoming a back door through which we get a public option or even single payer. Single payer looks like it may well start on a state level (in Vermont). The math is known and that will have to be a major success. How many states will follow to ease their budgets.

I am not deluded that that will happen quickly everywhere - too many Senators have pointed out that too many are ideologically against it.

[valerief]

4. Because the insurance/financial industry owns Congress. nt

[DallasNE]

9. What Is Really Needed Is A Single Payer System

I have a cronically ill 22-year old daughter on my plan and the paperwork associated with her is huge with all the efforts they try in order to disqualify her. The data they keep asking for goes well beyond what is required by law. Since they don't require this data of everybody is represents profiling based on payment history. The cost savings with a single payer system would be huge.

[Old and In the Way]

12. Sorry to hear about your situation.

I'm paying over $1000/mo for my private health insurance. I'd gladly pay that same amount as part of my taxbill to have a universal federal healthcare plan. Private insurance companies are in the business to delay and/or disallow your claims. The caseworkers are incentivized to avoid payouts and the corporations running it are incentivized to maximize their profits. I'm seriously considering dropping my private insurance because I doubt they'll be there for my family when we need it, based on our past experience on getting them to honor claims. A single payer option for all...if the 1%ers want private healthcare, they are more than welcome to pay for it-after they meet their social obligation. I want the choice to put my money in the program that I think will best look out for my health interests and it sure as hell isn't with for-profit private insurance companies.

[Vincardog]

13. The cost savings with a single payer system would be huge. Which is why they fight it so strongly

Kill the Parasites

[SoapBox]

3. "Support rises for health insurance mandate" Uh....no DUH!

Funny how the more people learn about stuff, the better informed they are.

Sorry GOPBaggers and T.Haters...your campaign of Hate, just ain't gonna work. And your plan,
the "Just Die Quickly" Plan, won't float.

NOW, if the Five Activist Judges on the S.C. will keep their radicalized, extremist hands off of it.

[Ship of Fools]

5. Maybe we'll be able to creep a crawl past our pathetic status quo --

and then, dare I say it? Single payer? Change sure as hell DOES take time...just sayin'.

[SkyDaddy7]

6. Yes, we will...But before Single Payer there will be a...

Public Option...The new health care law will continue to evolve toward that ending. My guess is it will move faster the more the insurance companies dick we the people around. So, my guess is the insurance companies will not change their behavior so it will make passing a PO easier with time.

People are starting to see why a mandate is the only option we have besides moving to a true government run plan...The stepping stone to single payer is a PO.

You are 1000% correct change in this country takes time & this is something we all need to understand so that we stay focused & not give in to eating our own when we do not get everything we want in one bill. I know just by saying this I will get beat over the head but it is TRUE!

[Vincardog]

15. Just for the sake of argument. How is requiring people to pay for a private plan that profits COs

and that they can not afford; to get a plan that they can not afford to use;"The stepping stone to single payer"?
A public option,
administered by the Government,
for the people with the rights to negotiate discounts,
Would be the real stepping stone to single payer.

Why couldn't the DEmocratic leadership put it on the table?
Why weren't the regressive elements in both parties forced to go on the record opposing is?
Because the current political climate is theater to pacify the populace and enrich the economic Royalists

[CrispyQ]

16. +1

Well said!

Also, CNN has no credibility.

[Uncle Joe]

17. It isn't, which is precisely why I believe the corporate supremacist Supreme Court will uphold it.

"Just for the sake of argument. How is requiring people to pay for a private plan that profits COs and that they can not afford; to get a plan that they can not afford to use;"The stepping stone to single payer"?

This will serve to strengthen the inefficient, immoral and redundant for profit "health" insurance industry increasing their profits and thus making it even easier for them to bribe/lobby future Congresses, it all comes full circle.

[SkyDaddy7]

26. How is the mandate a stepping stone to single payer...

Despite what many here on DU claim there is not 75% approval in America for a single payer system right now...It is more like 45% & that was in mid 2009 who knows what that % is after the Conservative propaganda campaign against the new HC Law. Most Americans think the HC Law is a government take over of the health care system when it could not be further from the truth! However, that just goes to show how misguided the majority of Americans are when it comes to the topic of health care in America & how effective the Right in this country is when it comes to creating undue FEAR! So, it will take TIME & small steps to get us to a single payer system.

Most people who have insurance like it & do not want to give it up for a government run plan right now. Especially now after the Right Wing has conned the country into thinking the new HC Law is a government takeover. Most Americans are under the impression established by 30yrs of Conservative propaganda that the government cannot do anything correct...So, it will take the mandate to show or should I say prove to the American people that the "for profit" system will not work. Americans are notoriously HARD HEADED! The next step would be a PO...Hopefully if the PO is run properly it will once again show the American people there is nothing to be scared of when it comes to a government run program. If it is run correctly most people will gravitate to the PO & from there it is not a far jump to single payer.


The new HC Law will allow us to slowly gravitate toward a single payer system but it will take time.

[onehandle]

8. Support is much higher for the public option.

So let's just do that.

[bread_and_roses]

14. Exactly. and I don't care what the Supremes say -

FORCING citizens to buy a product you can't do without from FOR-PROFIT vampires is NOT ethical or right or moral or even sane, and it sure as hell is not "representative" considering the support for a public option and even for single-payer. And don't give me the car insurance analogy - it's not comparable. In one case you can't or choose not to drive. In the other you die.

[Philosopher King]

18. "NOT ethical or right or moral or even sane, and it sure as hell is not "representative"

And more importantly, it is not Constitutional.

[pampango]

19. It may well be constitutional (per Think Progress) but the Gang of Five may not care.

Supreme Court Will Hear Health Care Case — At Stake Is Whether The Text Of The Constitution Still Matters

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/14/367361/supr... /

The most powerful line in conservative Judge Laurence Silberman’s decision upholding the Affordable Care Act is his simple recognition that the law’s opponents “cannot find real support for their proposed rule in either the text of the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent.” Today, the Supreme Court agreed to follow in Silberman’s footsteps — considering whether the judiciary can appropriately strike down a landmark health care law despite the fact that there is nothing in the Constitution allowing them to do so.

There can be no question that Silberman is right about what the Constitution has to say about this law. The plaintiffs’ primary challenge is to the provision requiring most Americans to either carry health insurance or pay slightly more income taxes (there are other issues in this case, which will be discussed in a subsequent post). In their vision of the Constitution, this provision runs afoul of some unwritten rule against being told what to do. The federal government can regulate how people go about the business they are already engaged in, under this vision, but it is utterly powerless to push people to engage in commerce they would prefer to avoid.

There are many, many problems with this theory of the Constitution, but Silberman’s rebuttal of it is both the most simple and the most elegant. The Constitution says nothing suggesting that people can immunize themselves from the law by remaining passive, it simply provides that the United States may “regulate commerce…among the several states.”

[Rozlee]

10. Might not survive a Supreme Court ruling, but...

I wonder if the states might not take up their own versions of public health care like Vermont and Massachusetts have if it didn't. Some pundits theorized before Obamacare that many would. I imagine a hue and cry will be raised in those two states if the Supremes strike down their public health care laws on the state level as well as the federal as being unconstitutional.

[BigD_95]

11. I hope the Supreme Court rules

that you can not mandate people buy health insurance from private companies without the option to buy from a public insurance company that run by the government. So then the government has to create their own

[Johnson20]

21. Yes and somehow handle it so

that physicians are required to service patients with it. That will of course never happen and its becoming a big issue around here with Medicare. Fewer and fewer and fewer doctors will take patients with it.

[lovuian]

20. It will have to be Affordable! How can someone mandate

something you cannot afford?

[hansberrym]

22. Why not a health care mandate? Why not compel people to provide

health care services for whatever rate of pay Congress decides to give them?

[pampango]

23. Krugman: Polls apart. (Support for the individual mandate vs. Newt's rise in GOP polls)

An interesting day for polling. On one side, a majority of Americans now support the individual mandate. Since that’s the core of health reform, this basically means that proponents are slowly winning the argument. If we make it to actual full implementation, this reform will be irreversible.

Meanwhile, I told you so; as one commenter at TPM put it, Republicans appear to have had an eTiffany: New National Polls Show Newt Leading In GOP Race.

I’m trying to think of something sarcastic to say, but really, how can satire and parody compete with this kind of reality?

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/polls-apart...

[Kablooie]

25. Doesn't matter. SCOTUS will decide. Thomas and Scalia have already decided I'm sure.

Since they dined last night as guests of honor with the lawyers who will bring the case against the health care plan.
They are apparently immune from any kind of moral or legal limitations to their personal political biases.
Talk about being above the law..

[laureloak]

27. Question: Will the Supreme Court decision affect just the

mandate portion of the Healthcare Act, or will it nullify the entire Act?

[harun]

28. Corporate Media is selling it as the whole thing, but it is just the mandate.

[greymattermom]

29. no mandate

and you'll have to put up a bond before getting any care, even in emergencies. Why should hospitals be required to provide care for nothing? They can't and that will be the next legal squabble.

[harun]

31. Hospitals give care for nothing every day now. It's the law.

Can't turn away dieing people, been that way for a long time.

[pampango]

30. The Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals from just one decision...the only one so far striking down

the mandate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/supreme-court-to-h...

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law, President Obama’s signature legislative achievement. The development set the stage for oral arguments by March and a decision in late June, in the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign.

The court’s decision to step in had been expected, but Monday’s order answered many questions about just how the case would proceed. Indeed, it offered a roadmap toward a ruling that will help define the legacy of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Appeals from three courts had been vying for the justices’ attention, presenting an array of issues beyond the central one of whether Congress has the constitutional power to require people to purchase health insurance or face a penalty through the so-called individual mandate.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals from just one decision, from the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, the only one so far striking down the mandate. The decision, from a divided three-judge panel, said the mandate overstepped Congressional authority and could not be justified by the constitutional power “to regulate commerce” or “to lay and collect taxes.” The appeals court went no further, though, severing the mandate from the rest of the law.

On Monday, the justices agreed to decide not only whether the mandate is constitutional but also whether, if it is not, how much of the balance of the law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, must fall along with it.

Interesting that the court agreed to hear only the case in which an Appeals Court struck down the mandate, not any of those where the mandate was ruled to be constitutional. That may be a sign of where the Roberts Court is going with this.

[Laelth]

32. Forcing people to buy private insurance is a very bad idea.

And it's probably unconstitutional to boot.

-Laelth

[bhikkhu]

36. The states already force you to buy private insurance for your car, of course

So there is no question that the states could force you to buy health insurance.

The question is whether the constitution allows the federal government to do the same. I suppose its going to the supreme court for a good reason, as the people who wrote the thing had little idea this would be an issue and its far from clear...

[Laelth]

37. Indeed. The states have greater legislative powers than the federal government.

But even the states, except for Massachusetts, don't force people to buy private insurance, not even for auto liability. No person in the United States, to my knowledge, is forced to drive a vehicle. Thus, no person is forced to buy auto insurance. The individual health care mandate is quite different. If the Health Insurance Company Enrichment Act is upheld by the SCOTUS, people will be forced to buy insurance just by the virtue of the fact that they are alive.

In that sense, this law is unprecedented (except, again, for Massachusetts). It's also, imho, a very bad idea.

-Laelth

[BlueIris]

34. Not believable to me (like most polls.) IF it's reflective of real responses, I'd say

that's because the bulk of all Americans still have no idea what the government did to us last year. They have no idea how much they will not get from the insurance industry in response to the government forcing the individual mandate upon us, or how many of their rights will be restricted as a result.

But there's no way I can believe that poll.

[politicasista]

35. check your

pm.

[pampango]

38. Krugman seems to think the rising poll numbers show an increasing understanding

of what ACA does.

"An interesting day for polling. On one side, a majority of Americans now support the individual mandate. Since that’s the core of health reform, this basically means that proponents are slowly winning the argument. If we make it to actual full implementation, this reform will be irreversible."

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/polls-apart...

[Motown_Johnny]

39. I think more people are seeing loved ones suffer because of health issues

and the longer this goes on the larger the percentage of Americans who will wish that someone they cared for had proper coverage.