ACA polling is being misrepresented. Why can't Anyone get this right?

[Motown_Johnny]

There are a group of us (myself included) who disapprove of the ACA because it is not liberal enough. That does not mean that we want it repealed, we want it expanded.


All this talk about polls showing that Americans don't want ACA enacted is a mis-characterization of what we really do want. The truth is that a strong plurality approve of the ACA as it is written, and only a small minority want to overturn it.

If the pollsters look into the numbers it becomes obvious. It seems as if they have stopped asking the correct questions just so they can misrepresent the answers. Aren't there any legitimate pollsters left anywhere?


One rare example when the correct questions were asked: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/27/poll-do-you-support-or-oppose-the-health-care-law/


^snip^


According to the poll, 43% of the public says it supports the health care law, a figure that's mostly unchanged in CNN polling since the measure was passed in 2010 by a Congress then controlled by Democrats and signed into law by President Barack Obama. Fifty-four percent of those questioned say they oppose the law, also relatively unchanged since 2010.

The survey indicates that 35% oppose the health care law because it's too liberal, with 16% saying they oppose the measure because it isn't liberal enough.






In this poll 43% support it as written and another 16% want it to be more liberal. That is 59% who want at least this much reform, if not more. Only 35% think it is too liberal.

Why is this not part of the discussion? We have a nearly 2-1 advantage on this issue. The Republicans in Congress need to listen to the American People (as they like to say) and fund Obamacare. Of course, if they did that we would also have background checks for gun purchases.

[Mika]

1. K&R

[gulliver]

2. Yup. It's an incredibly awful example.

The media produces a lot of dumbed down crap now, but nowhere is it worse than in "approval" polls. They all misrepresent in exactly the same, brutally obvious way you note. How can it be this bad?

[Motown_Johnny]

3. I think that this time it is worse.

All the (R)s are out there claiming that the people are against the ACA. The exact opposite is true.

Most of the time things get blurred through these types of things but this time up is down and black is white.

And all the while, the truth is there for anyone who takes the time to find out what it is.

[gulliver]

5. I completely agree.

The media won't ask "Do you want the Republicans to shut down the government if Obamacare is not repealed?" They ask "do you approve" and let everyone lie about what it means. And there are probably a lot of people who simply can't see how awful that is.

[leftstreet]

4. When you poll people on something they know nothing about...

Most people still don't know much of anything about the ACA

[Maraya1969]

6. Maybe we should start telling liberals to vote "yes" on Obamacare.

Voting 'NO is like disagreeing with a gun background check because an automated weapons ban was not included.

[Motown_Johnny]

12. I disagree with your analogy.

Wanting a public option, at a minimum, is a good reason to be unhappy about the law as it now exists.

Wanting an automatic weapon ban is no reason to not want background checks.

[Maraya1969]

13. Wanting a public option is no reason to not want health care reform. eom

[Fumesucker]

14. It is if you think the ACA was designed to protect the insurance companies

Demographics was getting ready to put serious hurt on insurance company profits, now the ACA has given them a guaranteed income direct from government funds.

I'm not quite sure what I think at this moment but I've definitely heard that sentiment put forth and I can't completely discount it.

Waiting to see how things work out in practice seems to be the best policy at the moment, I anticipate results to be highly mixed.

[joshcryer]

17. I think the ACA simply delayed their demise.

For the CEOs and workers currently in the industry it will make the decline go slower, as opposed to one big, impact, unemployment line rendering act. Around a half million people work in health insurance. Single payer was argued against in the 2008 primaries by the leading candidates (Obama, Hillary, Edwards) because the candidates didn't see it as viable for the reason that it would be far more streamlined and cost effective. It was basically seen as how could representatives vote for something that would wipe out 90% of those jobs overnight? I'm not saying this is necessarily logical, as there are always solutions to this sort of thing, but I recognize we're a capitalist country so they decided to go with insurance companies.

ACA is a slow burn. As states start adopting a public option or even single payer some others will hurt more, CEOs will have their pockets lined, employees will still have a job, though they'll be working longer hours and having to meet larger quotas if they want to keep their job.

It's going to suck in the long haul and probably cost taxpayers more than if we simply adopted single payer and paid unemployment benefits as well as job reassignment programs and new training.

[Scuba]

7. Most polls are designed to shape opinion, not measure it.

[Enthusiast]

8. Typical of misleading polls. nt

[Curmudgeoness]

9. I would love to devise a poll

that would really tell us a lot about the people and their opinions on ACA.

First question is straight forward: Do you suppose the ACA? But it gets increasingly complex. It would continue just as the referenced poll did. But then there would be questions about why the person agrees/disagrees with ACA. And it would move on to asking for more specifics, because I believe that most people do not know why they disagree (but maybe I am wrong and the polling would show me the error).

And the most important part of this poll would be to count every person who started the poll, even if they got half way through and decided to hang up on the questioner.....because most polls will invalidate any of these results since they were not completed. I think that if a person says that they disagree with it, and then quit when asked for details, this makes it clear that they do not have any details. They have no idea why they do not like it, except maybe because Rush told them it was bad.

This poll would also help in showing what the masses believe about ACA, and could make it possible to find out where education would help.

[doc03]

10. That poll was quoted several times on Chris Hayes' show last night, liberal

Democrats can't even get it right.

[Motown_Johnny]

11. That is exactly the problem.

If only people would go inside the numbers, just a little, the truth would be known.

[Fumesucker]

15. People who think the ACA is not liberal enough are utterly invisible in the M$M

It's a choice between most liberalist health care bill evah! or compassionate conservatism, now with bootstraps boiled in poverty juice.

[joshcryer]

18. It's by design. The MSM needs to foment this crap.

Indeed, the polling question doesn't even give the option to support the ACA but also express that it's not liberal enough.

You're either for it or against it.

And this narrative, that the MSM is unquestionably creating by these sorts of actions, is actually exposed by those who would prefer to bash ACA rather than discuss improving it.

Improving it has become something that isn't happening (or isn't even possible) in their mind, and that's precisely because the MSM has framed it in a "for or against" manner.

[Fumesucker]

19. I've had coverage on an insurance policy boil down to the interpretation of a single word

So I know the devil is most definitely hiding deep down in the details.

One thing the ACA will be is a gigantic money spigot, turning those off or even redirecting the flow gets more difficult the larger they are, the sheer flow of lucre creates a political magnetic field that holds potential energy just like the flow of electrons through a conductor.

You'd need a toroidal core the size of a continent to match the political inductance of the ACA once the money starts to flow.

[joshcryer]

20. No question about that.

The ACA is a boondoggle.

And those whose interests are to profit will try everything they can to do so.

It will be a question then of the political will of the people. Two states are already on their way to single payer. HHS will require by 2017 that all exchanges have at least one non-profit public option pool (in other words, we did get the public option, though non-profit pools may not have large group pools and may be more costly here; it's still non-profit).

I don't see how the insurers win this one, I really don't.

[joshcryer]

16. The poll question isn't good enough to support that position.

The polling options are:

Favor
Oppose, too liberal
Oppose, not liberal enough
No opinion

To support your "16% support it and want it to be more liberal" the poll would have to be like this:

Favor, liberal enough
Favor, not liberal enough
Oppose, too liberal
Oppose, not liberal enough

The 16% explicitly oppose it, under the constraints of the poll, which gives them an extra option of "not liberal enough" for their reason. Now it's probable that most of them would say "Favor, not liberal enough." But that's not what the poll says as it stands now.

The bigger question you should be asking is why the poll was set up this way to begin with? It's so that they can box the liberal opposition in! They don't give them the option to actually say they support it. Indeed, said option is rarely floated even on these forums (your thread does it, but it's rare), it's a black and white issue and the liberal opposition finds itself making spurious arguments that damage the image of the ACA (on this forum) as much if not more so than the Republicans who are against it.

Some of us prefer not to bash the ACA but would prefer to talk about how it can be improved. This is a completely different approach to the issue. It says, outwardly, that we are supportive of it, and that we want it to be improved. There are plenty of negatives with the ACA. Improving the positives (such as state based public options or single payer options) makes those negatives go away.

[SoCalDem]

21. Pollsters tweak their polls.. They should ask the proper questions

Given the following options, which do you prefer?

1...single payer (European/Canadian-style health care)

2. Obamacare (modified care with private insurers

3. You're on your own..get it thru job or you pay it yourself.


THAT poll result would be accurate

[Laura PourMeADrink]

22. The positive campaign for ACA is virtually non-existent in my opinion. No

wonder people are leery. Geez, years of the right spitting out the word "Obamacare" likes it's a disease unto itself - it's amazing your stats are as high as they are.

Tell me this....Does anyone know when costs will be announced. Am off track? Isn't each state supposed to come up with a pool ? When will NY, say, "Ok, for a family of four, the cost will be X" ?