Polls show Americans remain confused on health care
The top-line on Gallup’s poll on health care reform, published yesterday, reads:
No Clear Mandate From Americans on Healthcare Reform
Evenly split on long-term impact on healthcare system; one in four expect personal benefit
Via Gallup
After almost a year of endless discussion, the message is clear – nobody knows what the hell to think.
And who can blame them?
After months of, information, misinformation, disinformation, left-wing ideology, right-wing ideology, liberals, progressives, conservatives, teabaggers, town hall meetings, $100 million in advertisements for and against, death squads, AMA, Big Pharma, insurance lobby, conflicts-of-interests, committee hearings, public options, cooperatives, deficit neutral, deficit killer, procedural votes, substantive votes, reconciliation and filibuster, our political vocabulary has been greatly expanded – but our understanding of health care in American has not.
Whose fault is this? One hardly knows where to begin.
It’s very easy to pin the confusion on those who brought their ‘creativity’ to bear in the fight to stop health care reform. Suggesting the possibility of death panels is an effective way to gain the public’s attention as is comparing health care reform to the Dachau death camp in Nazi Germany.
But to blame only those who would spread fear as a tool to impact the debate is too easy and hardly the full story.
What about a President who has rarely spoken clearly as to what it is he wants in this fight? How could Obama hope to persuade the nation that health care reform is the right thing for us all when he can never tell us why it is the right thing for us all?
I’m not suggesting the President is ill informed or confused. Still, I recall watching Obama’s September 9th speech on health care, thinking that the greatest political communicator since Reagan could not manage to adequately explain his position to the rest of us. It was truly disheartening.
As a result, from a political perspective, the President has already lost- even if he wins.
When the president gets health care reform of some kind through – and I believe he will – history will judge whether it was helpful or hurtful to the American people. But the President’s failure to make the public feel that he has stood at their front to battle the special interests for something we truly need equals a political loss even if a legislative win. Come the 2010 elections, the public will still not know if our president has moved us toward meaningful healthcare reform or not. Indeed, we won’t even know in time for the 2012 race for the White House.
Whatever the result of Obama’s effort to reform to American health care system, we will still be confused for a very long time into the future.
Not surprisingly, as the American people find themselves unable to undersand the real issues – because nobody is telling them – they default to their ideological positions, turning the battle into one more conflict pitting red against blue. As reflected in the polls, liberals are for it, conservatives are against it, and independents no longer appear to be paying all that much attention. And few seem to really know why they are for or against.
And what of the polsters who have never understood how off target their surveys are because they never pose the right questions to the right people?
This is a fact – the overwhelming majority of Americans have never had to call upon their health insurance to pay off on a serious illness, and thank God for that. But, this hardly qualifies them to have a meaningful point of view as to the quality of their insurance coverage since they have never had reason to put it to the test.
While all insured and uninsured Americans do have something useful to say about the price of health care coverage, only those who have experienced serious, expensive illness can tell us as how their insurance company performed when it really mattered. Yet, this information that has been in shockingly short supply. And where are the surveys informing us how those who found themselves in hospitals or experienced the many other aspects of American health care fared in the system? This discussion is not just about the costs of drugs and health insurance but you would never know it.
How can Americans make an informed decision when the organizations taking on the responsibility of surveying success or failure found little value in gathering this information for our review? The polsters have been so busy telling us all what we think that they never bothered to give us useful information to use in forming our thoughts.
That leads us to a mainstream media that has failed us utterly and completely. While there has been some effort by writers on all sides of the political spectrum to bring real issues and information to the public, none of them have the weight or reach of the mainstream media. But with a news media focused on picking an ideological side and beating it to death in the effort to build their ratings, few ever bother to gather and disseminate information that would inform and educate our opinions.
How can any of use feel good about the way the health care debate has gone down? When the battle is over and the ideological sides declare victory, defeat or something in-between, most of us will be left to face our future health realities not really knowing whether the health care battle of 2009 made the health of our families better protected or not.
After all this time, money, and discussion, that’s a real shame.
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Yesterday, I was sitting with friends talking about how we all had been sick lately. One just got a job and was grateful to have insurance again. One just had a baby and was grateful to have medicaid. The other – me – lamented about not being able to get simple health care because a doctor’s visit plus prescriptions would cost around $150.
Then one friend said, “Didn’t they just pass health care reform?” We both shrugged – I think so, we said. “What does it do?” No one had any idea.
I read and listen to the news daily, and I still don’t know. You hit the nail on the head. I’m definitely confused.
Rick,
Don’t include yourself in the media, you’ve been my go-to guy for explaining what is actually going down. I think you nailed it once again when you explained that the media has no motivation to actually inform – they make their money off liberal vs conservative gladiator matches. For the people who aren’t sick now, the media coverage of this issue has been nothing but bread and circuses.
For those who have “pre-existing conditions” and/or whose employment status doesn’t fit the mainstream, the issues are pretty clear – you can’t afford to get ill and you can’t afford to prepare for it.
The people who don’t have adequate health care and who are opposed to reform are either letting their ideology trump their personal interests or they are being duped.
Thanks for that. I think there are bloggers out there who do understand and are making a real effort to explain it. Unfortunately, the mainstream media, who reaches the big numbers, are not.
In response to another comment. See in context »“The polsters have been so busy telling us all what we think that they never bothered to give us useful information to use in forming our thoughts.”
Well said!
“After almost a year of endless discussion, the message is clear – nobody knows what the hell to think.”
Absolutely. And here’s the biggest tragedy, at least in my eyes: My college-age colleagues around the country — who are rapidly approaching the end of the insurance-through-your-parents gravy train — engage in the mainstream media less frequently than older generations, and are even less likely to read those few brilliant, worthwhile analyses of health care reform when they do manage to rise to the surface.
I still don’t know what the hell to think and I guarantee you that most(though to be fair, not all) of my friends don’t either, even though a fair number of us are getting the boot from our policies as soon as the diploma hits our palms this may.
A discussion with my roommate this semester captures it more powerfully than I alone ever could. With a gaggle of LaRouche PAC protesters waving around Nazi/Obama comparison posters at the gates of our school, he told me was sincerely offended and planning to stage a counter-protest. But he didn’t. He later told me he didn’t try because he felt he didn’t know enough about the health care debate to begin to argue back. Even to propaganda as vile and outrageous as that.
Not everyone’s confused:
http://joshfulton.blogspot.com/2009/11/democrats-pass-health-care-bill-in.html
All due respect, after reading your site, I think you are very much confused. For starters, you have trouble separating the House bill from what is going on in the Senate. You say that a bill has been passed with no new insurer. That’s just wrong – the bill passed in the House does have a public option that is required to negotiate. So, frankly, you appear to very much be confused.
In response to another comment. See in context »Ah, yes, the public option that is the “new insurer,” the same public option that was supposed to start by insuring 130 million people, which the CBO now estimates will only insure a maximum of 6. That public option.
So, we’re forcing everybody into the market place (under the threat of criminal action), when we’re only introducing a miniscule public option that is not “robust,” meaning that the prices of the public option have NOT been tied to medicare.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/28/house-progressives-dial-b_n_337574.html
So, this new insurer is going to have to compete with Blue Cross Blue Shield which covers 68 million Americans.
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Blue-Cross-and-Blue-Shield-Association-Company-History.html
Ah, what a good deal. I’m sure the public option will be able to compete with that, and it simply won’t get crushed under the wheels of the other insurers, and all this won’t amount to an enormous giveaway to insurers that people can be sent to prison for up to 10 years for “evading” if they choose not to participate in. Yes, of course that won’t happen, because the insurer that Congress is proposing is “non-profit.” Yes, that will make everything alright, and their non-profitness will save the day.
What a joke.
Mr. Unger, the details of this might be confusing, but the greater picture, which from what I can remember from your article you choose not to elucidate, is clear: the individual mandate which is enforcible by massive fines and potential jail time will not work without a massive public option that is hopefully tied to Medicare. Anything else is a complete giveaway to insurers.
If you feel the need to refer to me as “Mr. Ungar”, while I prefer Rick, at least spell my last name correctly.
Secondly, I’m not defending the small reach of the public option. As you correctly note, I have spoken out about what it really means and what it does not do.
However, I have to say you keep mixing and matching facts that are guaranteed to further confuse a reader while this post all about that being the problem.
You may favor the more robust version considered by the House – as do I – however this would not have increased the number of people covered by the public option which is what you begin your comment discussing. To be honest, this is exactly my point.
While I’m sure you know a great deal on the topic, you are, very frankly, making my point. The reader isn’t looking to be impressed by what you know, what i know, what Keith Olbermann or Brit Hume knows. They want to UNDERSTAND what the hell is going on here.
By the way, your point that we are forcing people in the market place (something else I don’t favor) while introducing a miniscule public option again, misses the point.
The reason the public option is ‘miniscule’ is because the government is protecting existing health insurance policies, primarily provided to employees via employer plans. If you want to be angry, be angry that participants in these plans are not being given the option of electing to leave these plans and choosing the public option.
The reason that the number of people who can participate in the public option is so small is due to the protection of these corporate policies. People who receive coverage through Medicare and Medicaid were never intended to go into the public option as it would offer (a) nothing better than what Medicare recipients receive and (b) would be too expensive for those who get care through Medicaid. Also keep in mind that the House bill adds significantly to those who will qualify for Medicaid.
In response to another comment. See in context »Thus, this is not about people who are going to be left out of coverage because they are being denied access to the public option. There will be some left out, to be sure, but this is the result of that layer of society that earns too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to pay for what the public option will end up costing.
Again, this is not a good thing and I don’t support anyone being left out. My point in this post was about making all this stuff understandable to people. You simply want to show us what you know and, in the process, confuse the reader even more. We will accept that you know a whole bunch. Now, if you want to be helpful, focus on getting the information across to Americans in an understandable way.
No offense to you, but you are proving MY point. If everyone wants to go through every page of these bills, there would be nothing else to do with our time. We know the key points and that should be enough to base our decision on. Instead, the major points get obscured, while the minor ones get highlighted.
I’ve heard so many things about these bills, but the basic thing is that they’re going to force people to buy health insurance and it’s not going to save them any money. So, there, there’s the bottom line. Why do we need to go further. It’s like being told someone’s going to punch you in the face, and asking, “Well, how hard? Is he wearing rings? Is he tired, because that could affect it too?”
I don’t think I’ve complicated the issue, or added any extraneous detail. I’ve tried to boil it down to its most salient points, something which you try to do, but then seem to keep equivocating over the conclusion. If you disagree with each one of these major points, is the conclusion not clear? It really is that simple.
Also, I don’t know what you mean by the more robust version “considered” by the House, because as I mentioned the “robust version” of the public option (aka Medicare +5%) is not in the House bill. If you mean they thought about it, then decided something else, sure, they considered it. …They didn’t actually do anything with it, but I guess they talked about it.
Also, I wasn’t trying to casually link the size of the public option with its prices being tied to Medicare. Those are simply two separate things to be upset about.
In response to another comment. See in context »“I’ve heard so many things about these bills, but the basic thing is that they’re going to force people to buy health insurance and it’s not going to save them any money. So, there, there’s the bottom line. Why do we need to go further.”
I guess we need to go further because objective reporting of what is actually being proposed is difficult to do if (a) you chose to tell us all about it and you haven’t even read it and (b) because you are offering your opinion which you will forgive us if we accept it as your opinion – which is what it is – and not a statement of facts. Maybe you would like to give us your opinions of everything so we could all just stop reading and following events by just listening to what you think and accepting that as fact.
YOu are certainly entitled to your opinion and many of us would no doubt agree with it, but opinions and information are just not the same thing.
In response to another comment. See in context »“Objective reporting” You’ve got to love it. I can’t give my opinion now, because I have to be an “objective reporter.” I’m sorry to break it to you, Mr. UngAr, but I am not an objective reporter. I don’t get paid for that. I read the news, from sources I trust, and then I form opinions on it, you know, because I’m not afraid to form opinions. I don’t simply view everything as having equal weight and say “What are we supposed to do with such information!!!? It’s unsortable.” It’s completely sortable if you have the inclination to do so.
As far as reading the bill, no I haven’t read this 1,990 page bill that was only released a few days ago, and I have no intention of reading it. I don’t think that’s required to make someone’s opinion valid. I have a broader context of the events, a knowledge of the key issues, and I think that’s enough. You even apparently agree with me on all key issues, yet as far as I can tell, you make it seem as if it’s impossible to form an opinion.
As far as I can tell, you, at least not on this blog, are not a reporter. You are using other news reports as your sources. You are a commentator, yet for some reason you seem afraid to reach a final conclusion on the bill and comment only on the coverage of it. Well, way to contribute to the clutter.
Also, I’m not trying to take away from objective reporting, but it seems as if there are no conclusions to be drawn. I say there absolutely are.
In response to another comment. See in context »Also, I do make statements of fact. I make statements of fact based off of news stories that I read from what I perceive to be credible sources, and from the small tidbits of the bill I have read that have been linked to in other stories. I also quote figures, and politicians statements (in other posts I’ve written) that come directly from news stories, interviews, etc., and do not rely solely on government documents.
In response to another comment. See in context »Rick,
I believe you have articulated a view that as an Independent I have been coming to. I would also ask you to consider an additional factor in the mix that I will get to in a moment.
When this debate first came up it seemed after watching the Right and Left biased news channels that if I was for it I was a Socialist / Communist, against it I was a Racist. I am neither but there seemed no middle ground.
I looked at some of the language of the so-called “Death Panels” and the process seemed to replicate what I had gone through with my 92-year-old father. Meeting with a staff Social Worker at his facility, then meeting with an Attorney to draw up a Durable Power of Attorney, a Living Will, DNR (Do not Resuscitate) orders. I basically set up with his blessing in a lucid period, instructions that his life would be extended as long as his quality of life would not be damaged. One occasion I approved a life extending procedure, on the final one I did not. I believe I spared him a lot of pain and suffering in his final days by having gone through this process. If my reading of the “Death Panel” issue is correct then people have no idea of amount of pain they are playing with.
To my additional factor, I would add the speed of passage, without as you identified a compelling reason.
“To perfect things, speed is a unifying force. To imperfect things, speed is a destructive force.”
Michael Schumacher – 7 times World Champion Formula 1 driver.
He may have referring to setting up a F1 racing car, but this quote reads more like a universal truth. In addition, highlights the point I am trying to make.
Thank you for trying to add clarity to an issue nobody with a vested interest seems to want. Especially the press, controversial drama sells, truth does not, or to me that is the way it seems.
bullfighter-
1. I wish more people like you were being heard when the ‘death panel’ discussion was going on. You experienced it – sadly – up close and personal. As you discovered a DNR is a very important concept and I’m so pleased that you and your father were able to deal with this when your dad was in a position to let his feelings be known and to have you a part of it so you could honor those wishes. It sounds like your father could not have picked a better person to execute his wishes. The language that was in question – and which actually ended up in the House bill after all the nonsense – would allow a Medicare participant to have a discussion with their physician- at the government’s expense- so that the person can get information and think through, based on information and knowledge, how they want their end of life care to be handled. How this could ever be interpreted as a bad thing has always been beyond me. It took a remarkably cynical interpretation to get the result that the government wants to kill old people -despite the fact that average age in the Senate is about 150.
2. You’re right. The trouble is politics. If it doesn’t get passed before we get into the 2010 election cycle when everything stops for elections, it will never get done. Since we know how unbelievably hard it is to get legislation on health care reform, better to get it through, even with mistakes as we can always correct those mistakes in the years ahead. People forget that many adjustments were made to Social Security and Medicare after they were passed into law. Just like those pieces of landmark legislation, mistakes will be made here, unintended consequences will result and ideas that just didn’t come up will as time goes by. But to begin the process, we must get legislation to focus it.
In response to another comment. See in context »