Tweet
A few weeks ago, some polling suggested a minor increase in support for the new health care law, but recent polling indicates that is likely not the case. Three new polls show little improvement and even some loss in support for the law. Polls from Pew (approve 35 percent, disapprove 47), CBS News (approve 36, disapprove 49) and PPP (PDF) (support 40, 53) show the law remains very unpopular.
I’ve always expected the bill to remain unloved for a long time and did not understand why supporters of the legislation thought it would become more popular in the short to medium term. I never heard a satisfactory explanation for why the law would win more approval. The issue was heavily debated and very divisive. People developed locked-in opinions about it. Since almost all of its provisions don’t noticeably affect the vast majority of Americans for several years, I don’t see what event would cause most to re-examine their opposition.
There might be a very small group of people who believed the wild rumors that the law would immediately put in place some Orwellian nightmare of death panels, and then when that did not occur, they no longer opposed the law. If that group exists, it’s much too small to move the poll numbers.
In retrospect these numbers make the decision to abandon the idea of expanding Medicare and delay insurance-coverage expansion until 2014 to get a “better” CBO score look unbelievably misguided. We know from Libby, Montana that the government can quickly and easily expand its popular and cost-effective Medicare program to cover more people. In this economic environment, if the new law, starting this past May, made millions of regular Americans’ lives better by providing them with new insurance coverage or cheaper coverage through Medicare, support for the law would be significantly higher by now.
Instead, the new health care law will remain mainly an abstract issue of partisanship and the role of government in most Americans’ mind for years, until it becomes “real” halfway through Obama’s second term. Once again, Congressional Democrats will pay for having embraced bad policy, which is also terrible politics.
55 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL Action
I hate it. So do most Americans.
Interestingly, the two older polls which showed net favorable for HCR used the question “Do you approve of Congress’ health reform?” The newer ones called it Obama’s health plan. (Pew didn’t specify). It doesn’t really make sense, except that maybe Obama’s overall popularity is affecting perceptions of HCR.
I hope Obama really enjoys that corner office at Blue Cross he’ll be occupying starting Jan. 21, 2013.
Do you hate the whole concept of HCR, or just the crappiness of this law?
Hate health care (as flawed as it may be) for the U.s. public but love them undeclared wars. Typical
Speaking of offices at Blue Cross, David Sirota has a post at HuffPo noting that Obama just hired a former WellPoint (Anthem Blue Cross) executive to oversee implementation of the new phony HCR.
No surprise.
The swindling of ordinary Americans will continue.
Folks we need to hold our support from this creep in the WH
this guy is going to do harm exponentially to ordinary Americans by the time he is out office… you can bet on it,just look how quiet the WH has been on fighting for unemployment insurance for those who have been out of work forever…..or take a look at their foreclosure assistance program…..it’s a sham like everything else.
Posted earlier before I read the article by Sirota. It’s even better. Here’s the opening graph plus the link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/obama-hires-fmr-wellpoint_b_646874.html
Obama = Most despicable, dishonest President ever. (Didn’t think anybody could pass Nixon or Bush 43, but President Pinocchio has managed to do so.)
And so quickly, too.
There might be a very small group of people who believed the wild rumors that the law would immediately put in place some Orwellian nightmare of death panels
Yeah, all they got wrong was the immediacy of it:
http://www.alternet.org/rss/breaking_news/232980/obama_hires_fmr.__wellpoint_exec_to_implement_health_care_law/
Between this and Obama’s death panel on Social Security (AKA catfood commission), Obama will have us living like the Ballad of Narayama – except for the rich who will live by a separate set of rules.
The tooth fairy was supposed to leave the reasons under pillows. What? That didn’t happen?
Co-rrect!
One term and out.
Progressives need to read between the lines when it comes to the OBAMA Health Care Bill.
Obama and Rahm developed the HCR Scam to hang around the necks of progressives. (the corporate/media helped them with this task)
The Obama and Rahm HCR scam has nothing to do with Health Care, however it is the ultimate weapon to keep Democrats out of the white house and congress. The HCR Bill gets substantially worse after 2012!
OBAMA and Rahm have basically developed a time bomb that will go off after 2012 and destroy progressives.
(the current HCR BILL is the Bob Dole health care bill, the question is why didn’t republicans support it? Republicans know that the Bob Dole Bill will never be like by Americans!)
Obama is the ultimate Trojan Horse! Obama got the Dems to pass a HCR bill that will destroy them for years.
Progressives must hang this Health Care Bill around OBAMA neck!
Progressives need to develop their Health Care Bill and show America, that their Bill is nothing like Obama phony HCR bill.
The Citigroup-run (Jacob Lew) OMB will explain to us how great things are along with the Rubinites at Treasury with WellPoint (Liz Fowler) picking up the slack at HHS.
How do you suggest this be done? There are almost no ‘progressive’ members of congress; those who claimed to be in the past are now firmly locked into their veal pens.
Yeah, I hear that the O admin saved 3 million jobs, from them of course. That should go over about as well.
So, approval for the bill comes in at around 35%, which makes it only a little more popular than the average approval rating for George Bush in his second term? With numbers like that, it looks like we have a real winner! Or as Obama’s supporters say, “a legislative triumph”.
Well yes,but people are paying attention…this is not the early 90′s or late 80′s when Americans were relatively comfortable with their lives.Almost all ordinary Americans are worse off and thus they are paying attention.
At the drop of a hat people can detect the bullshit.
Fixed it for them.
I like that repair job!
Can’t take much credit. That’s the way I first read it! Funny the jokes your eyes play on you.
Yea! they saved 3 millions jobs for about 2 months.
Now those so called saved jobs are going bye-bye now.
And wait until January 2011…
Maybe Obama can arrange to have the census taken every year.
Well, in order to get job ‘growth’ out of that, they’d have to hire more census workers with each successive year. But that might work, as voluntary compliance would surely erode.
Goosh! he is just as incompetent as Bush.
Don’t miss David Sirota’s diary over at Orange — “Obama Hires Fmr. Wellpoint Exec to Implement Health Care Law” — say, isn’t she the woman who wrote the bill?
this is a forget congress idea!
progressives have got to go outside the box on this one.
progressives need to e-mail jane break down of the HCR scam to every american they can.
Having read some of his writings the past couple of years, I knew that Obama hates Boomers. He certainly stuck it to us here. First, he cut Medicare in the bill. In a private meeting with AHIP and Big Pharma and Max Baucus, he agreed to let the insurance companies who are in the “Exchange” charge anyone over 55 three times the premium that younger people pay. Where is the outrage?
Unbelievable! But all too believable, really.
That has got to be one of the biggest “f*ck yous” on record to the electorate.
I’m the thinking the electorate has just as big of a FU back planned right about now.
Obama and Rahm must laugh at american citizens daily!
how do you make Bush look smart, by Obama
Obama kills the Public Option
Obama kills Drug Importation
Obama support taxing Union Health Care Plans, Obama also supports letting the Wall Street crooks get their bonuses
Obama supports the Individual Mandate, (Obama has not said a word about un-employment benefits being cut off)
Obama does not support the hiring of numerous Progressives, (Obama Hires Well Point Executive to adminster the plan he or she wrote)
Obama attacks Unions for supporting Halter (Obama does not attack BP for destroying the Gulf of Mexico)
Obama and Rahm must laugh everyday, Obama said all I had to do was talk like a progressive, and once I got the white house I became Bush
This was not HCR, nor should the focus have been HCR It should have been Health INSURANCE Reform and that means allowing people to buy into Medicare. Try this on for size. All of the solid, truly enlightened people I know have utter contempt for:
1) the pro-industry Democratic power structure who have stolen the Democratic Party and who enacted a plan that reflects traditional Republican values because that is what they actually represent, and
2) the stupid mob on the supposed left who showed themselves in the end game to be much more selfishly interested in winning than in actually helping all the people in this country who are suffering under our current corrupt health insurance system.
Because that is exactly what the proponents for this bogus HCR were fighting for while viciously attacking the intelligence and morality of all of those who called this scam and their ignorant selfishness for what it was. They are a bigger obstacle to fixing what is wrong with our country than Tea Party yahoos ever will be because they are the smug elitists who actually are primarily dedicated to making sure they stay privileged.
Sorry buttercup, you couldn’t be ***edited in moderation***. The facts are that boomers were some of the biggest proponents of this reform because they are an elitist, selfish generation who see preserving their privilege as their first, selfish goal. This reform was designed first and foremost to benefit the American financial, insurance, hospital, pharma, and medical care industries in which boomers have settled into the leadership and made substantial money for themselves as a generation. The “Obama” plan is in all substantial respects the pro-industry, Republican plan that boomers (former Goldwater Republican) Hillary and Bill Clinton supported. Rahm Emanuel, born 1959, is a boomer too.
(MODNOTE: disagree with the message but do not attack the messenger. demeaning and/or insulting the messenger will result in your comment being moderated)
The Citigroup-run (Jacob Lew) OMB will explain to us how great things are along with the Rubinites at Treasury with WellPoint (Liz Fowler) picking up the slack at HHS.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs neatly pivots and becomes the voice of progressive economic thought…
On the fiscal side, it is difficult to argue that the US government has reached the limits of its debt capacity when long-term bond yields are low and falling, and when federal interest payments stand at just 11Ž2% of GDP. When compared with the risk of a renewed economic downturn and/or a descent into deflation, the cost of additional stimulus seems to be well worth paying.
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20100705/009289.html
I’m not really sure what role she’ll play in the overall administration of the new law — I guess we’ll have to wait until 2013 to find out for sure.
Yes indeedy, I have been awaiting my chance to say FU you for a year now, when I first heard the rumor that Orahma would puss out on the public option. FU!
It’s not a health care law it’s a mandatory medical insurance law.
The scary thing is–suppose the depression is still going when the mandates kick in.
Have a nice day.
The obvious reform of the “reform bill” is to expand the Libby Montana provision Jon mentioned. No one here would deny that Montanans suffering from asbestosis should have Medicare coverage, but then so should cancer patients in Alaska and stroke victims in Florida and everyone in between.
So let’s do the math, between Part B and Part D premiums, Medicare costs $140 a month or so. Medicare Part A (hospital) has a $1100 deductible, Part A (medical provider) and Part D (drug) each have $150 deductible. The copayment is typically 20% over and above the deductible. In most areas there are Part C Medicare Advantage HMOs that cover “in-network” hospitals, providers and drugs with an out of pocket cap of $300 or so, of course there’s no “network” or out of pocket cap for traditional Medicare (certainly Medicare’s benefits package should be improved. The Libby Amendment gives the HHS Sec. authority to to reform the benefits package at her discretion).
Now let’s look at the dog food that President Obama has wrapped and placed under the tree for us. Those with no insurance for more than 6 months and have been denied coverage because of a preexisting condition within the past 6 months (the rest of uninsured can wait till 2014), the premiums for the “Preexisting Condition Insurance Plan” will vary by state. To use Georgia (which is under the federally run PCIP) as an example, “The estimated premium for a 50 year old will be between $491.00 and $600.00″. And what do you get for pay 3.5 to 4.2 times what Medicare premiums would cost?
You will pay a $2,500 deductible for covered benefits (except for preventive services) before the plan starts to pay. After you pay the deductible, you will pay a $25 copayment for doctor visits, $4 to $30 for most prescription drugs, and 20% of the costs of any other covered benefits you get. Your out-of-pocket costs cannot be more than $5,950 per year. These costs may be higher, if you go outside the plan’s network.
http://www.healthcare.gov/law/about/states/ga.html
The $2500 deductible and $5,950 out of pocket cap, of course, are after paying up to $7200 in premiums. Its hard to believe (or imagine how) a Democratic Congress in opposition to a McCain-Palin Administration could have negotiated a worse deal.
HCR was passed and it will benefit 30 million people who were previously uninsured. My husband and I have Medicare and a secondary and receive excellent care wherever we go. My son who is 43, always worked til 18 months ago. He lost his job, gone through his 401K, cobra was expensive but it has run out. Last year, when he had cobra and was in the hospital, seriously ill,he received excellent care and follow up. He could afford his meds. He is in the hospital again, seriously ill. Has no insurance, He is getting decent treatment, but this time No regular physician, no family consults, and the meds are inferior. So there is a difference. When he was a baby, we had no family insurance, the hospital demanded a $1,000 before they would admit him. Different state. Iam glad young people can stay on their parents insurance until they are 26. This HCR is not perfect but it is far better than what existed last year at this time and it can get better just like Medicare, if the repugs don’t screw it up.
Below is part of a comment that showed up on my Facebook feed in response to a general comment about Obama and the deficit. I don’t think a single one of her concerns is based in actual fact and the author is not a particularly political individual.
Misinformation abounds. As disagreeable as I find the Health Insurance Bill, I would prefer that those who oppose it base that opposition on the actual provisions rather than this sort of mis information.
Personally, I agree with this “Democrats will pay for having embraced bad policy, which is also terrible politics.” No matter how much you polish a turd, it still smells.
CarmanK, Go to that website I just linked and find the state page for where your son lives to see what the preexisting condition plan is for there (hopefully its a state run plan that’s a better deal than the federal PCIP). You’ll want him to fill out an application (well mom can fill it in and he can sign it) for a private individual health insurance plan, the more gold plated the better, and send it in. I’d love to see the look on the underwriter’s face reviewing an insurance app from someone in a hospital at that very moment.
Once you have that reject letter in hand, your son has 6 months from the date of that letter to be entitled to high risk pool coverage (though I suppose like a building permit, you could just “renew it” by applying again). If your son just lost his COBRA, he’ll have to run out a period of 6 months without coverage first before he can enroll in a high risk pool, but that won’t hold you up for applying (and getting rejected) for private insurance first. Be sure to check on your state’s eligibility for Medicaid and if your son happens to be a veteran, then of course he’s in high cotton (I’m assuming he’s not or he’d be in a VA hospital right now).
Good luck, and I hope he’s feeling better soon.
You know what this means, people. We’re not clapping loud enough.
I wonder how we boomers came out to be so much worse than our parents. Was it heredity or environment?
At least we didn’t drop the atomic bomb or try to raise our kids on Wonderbread and chemicals. Or send them to die in Viet Nam. Or mar our flesh with grotesque tattoos and body piercings.
Never Trust a Democrat
I’d love to see the “facts” you mentioned above.
Got any?
I suppose a lot of people will receive subsidies to purchase medium-quality plans, while others see their employers move down to these same medium-quality plans to avoid paying the excise tax. Not sure how this will affect the medical bankruptcy rate.
No universal coverage, no single payer, not even a freaking public option.
Just more corportism from Goldman Sach’s favorite bitch.
Most people don’t even know anything about the healthcare bill so this poll means almost nothing. The fact is the healthcare bill is somewhat of an improvement of what we had though that’s not saying much. Medicare for all is by far the best solution but Americans are so scared of change and the political system is so corrupted by big business that real reform is many years away.
What an abusrdity. Despicable because the cowardly democrats in congress handed him a pile of shit to sign for HCR? You’re actually comparing this man to Nixon – who undermined democracy with felons like G. Gordon Liddy? Who lied to America about invading Cambodia? Who kept an enemies list and spewed racism in the White House? You’re really comparing him to Bush – the man who laughed and played guitar while New Orleans drowned? The man who exploited 9/11 to invade Iraq? The man who ignored the CIA and FBI in the weeks leading up to 9/11?
Say what you want abt Obama, but comparing this HCR – which WILL help MANY Americans in the years to come – as Walker details in his story, but comparing HCR to Bush’s massive tax cuts and plans to starve out the federal government just shows your hatred and ingrained racism… In NO ways is Obama as evil as Nixon or as incompetent as Bush…
you’re seeing something else in him and I have to wonder if it’s skin color…
Issuing assassination orders of US citizens without trial certainly puts Obama near the top of the right wing fascists list.
If progressive democrats had held their ground the health care law minus public option would never have passed. If they had held their ground on financial reform perhaps Wall Street would have a real reason to shun Dems. When are the progressive going to learn they are selling crap to the public when they support Obamacorp. Emmanuel and Obama are not only setting themselves up to go down in flames, they are taking all Dems with them. The message couldn’t be clearer: The ship is sinking, save yourself.
Wow you have a persuasive argument there.
Every generation has many like that,
and some that aren’t…
As someone making 300% above the poverty line, I can say this is bull.
It dose not matter what mandate they pass. There is simply no way I can go out and afford insurance; end of story. Saying that I am now somehow magically insured is fantasy.
Yeah, no one could possibly have a principled objection to a guy who has continued and expanded on Bush’s policies for eroding civil liberties, indefinite detention without trial, renditions to secret prisons, alarming extensions of state secrecy and executive power grabs not to mention aping Bush’s Iraq surge with one of his own in Afghanistan that is doing little except killing a lot of innocent civilians and aiding war profiteers in bilking the taxpayers out of hundreds of billions of dollars. And let’s not forget Obama’s continued coddling of Wall St, big pharma and the health insurers with his corporatist HCR bill that he conspired in secret with the medical and insurance industries to foist on the public in exchange for promises of political support and campaign donations after promising full transparency. The HCR bill is even worse than Bush’s Medicare Part D in that it not only uses taxpayer money to bribe private industry into doing something the government has already demonstrated it can do better and more efficiently but fucking mandates taxpayers to buy overpriced “coverage” from private insurers that will not provide adequate access to health care on penalty of hefty fines.
If Obama is sincere in his desire to help the common folks and reverse the disastrous course of the past 30 years of Republican and right-wing Democratic rule then he’s a naive, weak, bumbling incompetent fool. Otherwise he’s just playing for the other side.
But I guess I’m just another racist for pointing that out.
+1000
Jon was writing here for months (like they didn’t already know on the Hill) that HCR didn’t need 60 Senate votes, they could pass a public option bill by reconciliation. But that was impossible, you see, everyone knew reconciliation couldn’t be used for healthcare. That lasted until the Mass. Senate race killed any chance to get 60 votes. So Reid and Pelosi had to go ahead and use reconciliation after all to get a bill passed. But wait, they couldn’t add a public option amendment to the House bill because if the Senate hanged one word of the bill, it would have to go back to the House for another vote (I don’t even remember what line of BS they used to explain why the House Bill didn’t have a PO).
Jon wrote here that the House bill as written would be tripped up by a point of order and would have to be kicked back to the House anyway for correction, so there was no reason not to amend it. No, that wasn’t possible, the House Bill was written by experts, it was bullet-proof. Sure enough, no amendments were allowed and the parliamentarian bounced the bill over a point of order and the bill had to go back to the House for another vote.
There was no public option bill, there was never going to be a public option bill. It was reported in the NY Times that Obama had already negotiated away a public healthcare plan last summer when he gave away the store in secret WH deals with Healthcare lobbyists. Nevertheless, the Administration had kept up the public option rhetoric to freeze progressives, to keep public option advocates from throwing in with the single payer folks.
After the HCR bills passed, only then did the White House gloat that they had just passed Bob Dole’s 1993 individual mandate bill, which of course was far less progressive than Richard Nixon’s employer mandate healthcare proposal. Well there will be a bunch of newly retired Democratic Members of Congress next year. They will have plenty of free time to savor their victory.