Poll: Most Don't Know What "Public Option" Is -- Including Pollsters

[one...two...tree 2,762]

A new survey by

, Schoen and Berland Associates for the AARP reveals widespread uncertainty about the nature of the "public option" -- a government-run health insurance policy that would be offered along with private policies in the newly-created health insurance exchanges. Just 37 percent of the poll's respondents correctly identified the public option from a list of three choices provided to them:

It is tempting to attribute these results to attempts by conservatives to blur the distinctions of the health care debate. And surely that is part of the story. But it may not be all that much of it. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to correctly identify the public option in this poll, but not by all that wide a margin -- 41 percent versus 34 percent. Meanwhile, 35 percent of Republicans thought the public option refers to "creating a national healthcare system like they have in Great Britain" -- but so did 23 percent of Democrats.

This should serve as something of a reality check for people on both sides of the public option debate. If the respondents had simply chosen randomly among the three options provide to them, 33 percent would have selected the correct definition for the public option. Instead, only 37 percent did (although 23 percent did not bother to guess). This is mostly a debate being had among policy elites and the relatively small fraction of the public that is highly knowledgeable and engaged about health care reform; for most others, the details are lost on them.

This is also why relatively small changes in wording can trigger dramatic shifts in support for the public option, which has been as high as 83 percent in some polls and as low as 35 percent in others depending on who is doing the polling and how they're asking the questions. You don't see those sorts of discrepancies when polling about, say, gay marriage or the death penalty, where the options are a little bit more self-evident.

Unfortunately, some liberal interest groups may be contributing to the confusion as well, with this poll being a prime example. When Penn, Schoen and Berland ask people to identify the public option, they describe it -- correctly -- as offering health insurance at "market rates". However, when they ask people how they feel about the public option, a different concept is introduced:

"Starting a new federal health insurance plan that individuals could purchase if they can’t afford private plans offered to them."

Seventy-nine percent of the poll's respondents -- including 61 percent of Republicans -- say they'd support this proposal. But it seems to be a very different proposal from the "public option" that Penn, Schoen and Berland took so much care to define, or the one that is actually being debated before Congress. Rather than offering health insurance at "market rates", the public option has been transformed in this question into a sort of fallback policy for people who are priced out of the market. Moreover, the term "government" has been replaced by the softer but more ambiguous term "federal".

Also, if you read the fine print, this is an Internet-based poll, which is not something that an esteemed firm like Penn, Schoen and Berland or an esteemed organization like the AARP should be toying with. Telephone polls have their problems, particularly if they do not include respondents with cellphones, but they are a long ways ahead of Internet-based polling. Zogby Interactive, the most prolific (if the least methodologically sound) Internet-based pollster, has missed the outcome of recent elections by an average of 7.6 points when conducting polls online. (Internet-based polling is cheaper to conduct, but as is the case with fine dining in Manhattan, "value" should not be confused for "cost". Any organization commissioning an Internet-based poll is probably wasting its money, because the poll isn't likely to be any good.)

More generally, there seems to be a sort of arm's-race on both sides of the debate to conduct crappy, manipulative polls on health care reform, and the public option in particular. This poll belongs in the '#######' pile, as do most of the others. Defenders of the public option, however, should have little to fret about: the most neutrally and accurately-worded polls on the public option -- these are the ones from Quinnipiac and Time/SRBI -- suggest that their position is in the majority, with 56-62 percent of the public supporting the public option and 33-36 percent opposed.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/08/pol...lic-option.html

[Empress of Groovy 373]

Oy.

[Heracles 417]

So only 37% actually understand the proposal. Explains why there is so much BS rhetoric.

[Pooky 3,795]

I bet about the same percentage in the Senate and the House of Representatives would get it right, too. Seems that way from the completely disorganised BS flying around from both the ** and Republican't camps. Zero consistency. Total confusion. ####### all hope of getting a clear answer from anyone.

[Heracles 417]

The plan is quite simple.

1. Cover all of the uninsured - utilizing the buying power of the federal government

2. Regulate existing policies - so that dodgy clauses, such as not covering pre-existing conditions are removed.

Not that hard to understand. Some people are disingenuously claiming it will turn into a NHS. This is no different to those who believed wire taping after 9/11 was the first step towards the government controlling us. At the end of the day, if someone wanted to, they could turn collecting your mail from your mailbox into a conspiracy.

When the left is in office, everything they do is some sort of conspiracy to the right. And vice versa. So how do you ever get anything done? Standoffs like this is exactly why the parliamentary system is so popular. At least under that system, you have the appropriate checks and balances but you can still get something done. After all, that is why the party in charge was democratically elected into office.

Edited August 29, 2009 by haza

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

First let me say I'm for the public plan. However in the long run the public plan could become similar to the NHS if it becomes larger then proposed (I think the goal is 35% of the market). If say it knocked insurance companies out of business over 10 years then it would be the only system running and we'd have to contribute to it.

Its not going to happen but technically it could.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

First let me say I'm for the public plan. However in the long run the public plan could become similar to the NHS if it becomes larger then proposed (I think the goal is 35% of the market). If say it knocked insurance companies out of business over 10 years then it would be the only system running and we'd have to contribute to it.

Its not going to happen but technically it could.

Public insurance option should not have to cover everything. The health insurance industry will be able to adapt to offering supplemental care the way it does now for those on Medicare. Medicare didn't kill private insurance for the elderly.

[Pooky 3,795]

First let me say I'm for the public plan. However in the long run the public plan could become similar to the NHS if it becomes larger then proposed (I think the goal is 35% of the market). If say it knocked insurance companies out of business over 10 years then it would be the only system running and we'd have to contribute to it.

Its not going to happen but technically it could.

Public insurance option should not have to cover everything. The health insurance industry will be able to adapt to offering supplemental care the way it does now for those on Medicare. Medicare didn't kill private insurance for the elderly.

My problem with the system here in the USA is that it is inherently inefficient, by reason of the insurance companies. Any element of the system whose main purpose is to draw money out of the system, in their case in the form of profits, is inefficient. Add to that the propensity for any body in the game to make a profit, they will naturally attempt to maximise that profit, so increasing the inefficiency of the system.

Run at a state level, I am all for the "public" option, if it removes the calculated inefficiency from the system and redirects it back into the business of healthcare. With private coverage available over and above this, along the Australian or British systems, it would be eminently preferable to the current clustrf*ck we have.

None of the current proposals will achieve this and half-measures will only exacerbate the problem. The President missed the boat big time, and now is mired in Senatorial and Congressional farce, pledged up to the eyeballs in support of big pharmaceutical interests and appeasing the private insurance companies. He really couldn't have made a bigger pile of poo out of this if he tried.

[natty bumppo 297]

guess obama & team are having a ... "failure to communicate" ..

maybe they should have been better prepared ...

[Danno 1,228]

In the interest if (my) education, what exactly does this mean?

".... to offer health coverage are market rates"

If I were to open a car rental biz and offer rentals at the "market rates"..... how have I done anything for customers who can't afford to rent a car?

[zqt3344 21]

Sad but true, not even the Messiah can explain what the hell is going on with this health care plan, he is pushing it and he does not even have a plan, he leaves it up to Congress! What a moron!

[Danno 1,228]

Sad but true, not even the Messiah can explain what the hell is going on with this health care plan, he is pushing it and he does not even have a plan, he leaves it up to Congress! What a moron!

Actually, not having a plan... was THE PLAN.

When you submit your plan... you must answer for it, this assortment of plans leaves everyone free to discount the critique they knew would come.

Then at the 11th hour they vote and it's a done deal.

[zqt3344 21]

Danno very good, agreed. Or better yet let everyone else put forth a plan and sit back and say I want change and I want reform and here is the deadline and I have a mandate, then when nothing gets done or nothing good comes out of Congress and it fails or does not work, then Mr Messiah as he always does will ride the fence in the middle and come out and do the blame game on Congress or insurance companies or whomever just like he blames Bush for all his problems now that he cannot fix or solve.

Sad but true, not even the Messiah can explain what the hell is going on with this health care plan, he is pushing it and he does not even have a plan, he leaves it up to Congress! What a moron!

Actually, not having a plan... was THE PLAN.

When you submit your plan... you must answer for it, this assortment of plans leaves everyone free to discount the critique they knew would come.

Then at the 11th hour they vote and it's a done deal.

[Heracles 417]

Sad but true, not even the Messiah can explain what the hell is going on with this health care plan, he is pushing it and he does not even have a plan, he leaves it up to Congress! What a moron!

Um Congress is the one who has to approve the plan. Checks and balances

Danno very good, agreed. Or better yet let everyone else put forth a plan and sit back and say I want change and I want reform and here is the deadline and I have a mandate, then when nothing gets done or nothing good comes out of Congress and it fails or does not work, then Mr Messiah as he always does will ride the fence in the middle and come out and do the blame game on Congress or insurance companies or whomever just like he blames Bush for all his problems now that he cannot fix or solve.

No Obama bankrupted the country in the seven months of entering congress. Bush just decided to stage two wars while cutting taxes.

[zqt3344 21]

And your point is?

Sad but true, not even the Messiah can explain what the hell is going on with this health care plan, he is pushing it and he does not even have a plan, he leaves it up to Congress! What a moron!

Um Congress is the one who has to approve the plan. Checks and balances

Danno very good, agreed. Or better yet let everyone else put forth a plan and sit back and say I want change and I want reform and here is the deadline and I have a mandate, then when nothing gets done or nothing good comes out of Congress and it fails or does not work, then Mr Messiah as he always does will ride the fence in the middle and come out and do the blame game on Congress or insurance companies or whomever just like he blames Bush for all his problems now that he cannot fix or solve.

No Obama bankrupted the country in the seven months of entering congress. Bush just decided to stage two wars while cutting taxes.