AP Poll: Health Care Law Making Us Muddle-Minded

[dtotire]

AP Poll: Health Care Law Making Us Muddle-Minded
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 21, 2010



Filed at 4:17 p.m. ET


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Six months after President Barack Obama signed the landmark health care law, the nation still doesn't really know what's in it.

More than half of Americans mistakenly believe the overhaul will raise taxes for most people this year, an Associated Press poll finds. But that would be true only if most people were devoted to indoor tanning, which got hit with a sales tax.

Many who wanted the health care system to be overhauled don't realize that some provisions they cared about actually did make it in. And about a quarter of supporters don't understand that something hardly anyone wanted didn't make it: They mistakenly say the law will set up panels of bureaucrats to make decisions about people's care -- what critics labeled ''death panels.''

The uncertainty and confusion amount to a dismal verdict for the Obama administration's campaign to win over public opinion. Before the final votes in Congress, Obama personally assured wavering Democrats he'd take the case to the American people after the law passed. But it hasn't worked. And in the final stretch before the midterm elections Republicans are united by their call for repeal.

''I'm insecure about a document that was as big as the health care bill and wonder if anybody understands exactly what's in it,'' said Diann Kelley, 61, a retiree from Marietta, Ga., who says she's ''somewhat opposed'' to the law. The AP poll was conducted by Stanford University with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.


more:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/09/21/us/politics/AP-US-Health-Care-Poll.html?ref=news

[Pirate Smile]

1. Republicans excel at misinformation. The media provides a great assist.

Democrats don't do a good job of talking in sound-bites and expansive legislation like this is very difficult to explain quickly and easily.

[emulatorloo]

2. Well put.

It is driving me crazy how anxious the media is to broadcast every Republican lie out there.

[emulatorloo]

3. "the more accurate knowledge people had of the bill, the more they liked it."