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The individual mandate, a requirement in the Affordable Care Act that individuals buy private health insurance or pay a fine, is still very unpopular according to the newest Kaiser Family Foundation poll. According to the poll 63 percent have a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of the individual mandate, while only 35 percent have a very or somewhat favorable opinion of it.
The poll also found that the individual mandate was one of the most cited reasons for why people don’t like the overall law.
The fact that the individual mandate has been unpopular since it was proposed and remains unpopular two years after its adoption shouldn’t be news. Yet early this month many different supporters of the Affordable Care Act cited results from a poorly written CNN/ORG poll question to claim the public now supports the individual mandate. That CNN/ORC poll found that 52 percent support the provision requiring all Americans to get insurance, while 47 percent opposed. The CNN/ORG poll language, however, left out any mention of a fine, penalty or punishment for not getting insurance.
Wording of the CNN/ORC poll question:
As you may know, the health care bill passed in 2010 includes a provision that will require all Americans who do not have health insurance to get it. Do you favor or oppose that provision?
Wording of the KFF poll question:
15. Next, I’m going to read you several elements of the health reform law. As I read each one, please tell me whether you feel very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very unfavorable about it. First, (INSERT AND RANDOMIZE; OBSERVE FORM SPLITS). (READ FOR FIRST ITEM, THEN AS NECESSARY: Would you say you feel very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable about that?)
a. The law will require nearly all Americans to have health insurance by 2014 or else pay a fine
*emphasis mine
Of course people are more likely to say they support an ideal if you don’t mention a critical aspect of concept that is the reason most people have opposed it. But that does not produce an accurate reflection of public opinion.
It is always possible that at some point in the future, potentially after the law is implemented, a majority may come to support the individual mandate. But currently that is definitely not the case.
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This is poorly worded for another reason as well. It doesn’t indicate that you will have to pay for that health insurance that you’re going to get, i.e.:
“the new car bill passed in 2010 includes a provision that will require all Americans who do not have a new car to get one.”
Free cars for everyone.
Jon, isn’t your “nobody could have predicted” file getting fairly full? You may need to start a second one. :-P
Heh. A majority of Americans may some day support something blatantly unconstitutional. That says all one needs to say about today’s Americans. They are most definitely capable of agreeing with anything that’s blatantly anti-American.
I believe in majority rule democracy (with limitations from a functioning constitution to protect minority rights from the tyranny of the majority) and if a majority of Americans want fascism, I say America deserves it.
Enjoy it.
Candidate Barack Obama campaigned against the individual private insurance mandate, in fact he ridiculed it. He must have known it was unpopular. Yet now it’s the keystone of the Affordable Care Act.
Washington politicians keep making unpopular decisions that poll really badly, then they wonder why the 99 Percent are marching in the streets.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-much-does-health-insurance-cost-the-average-premium-for-individual-coverage-in-2011-was-183-per-month-ehealth-study-finds-2011-11-02
If the average annual US income is just under $50,000, that amounts to about 10%. Let people opt for an additional 10% payroll tax taken out of their check to go into a government “single payer” pool, and they could eliminate the insurance company all together.
What could be easier?
There’s less than 1/10 of one percent marching in the streets.
It’s a good idea, but if you’re going to still have a majority of people in the old self pay/insurance pay system, then I think those in such a single payer pool will be crowded out of access to doctors due to differeing reimbursements.
I can see that. Let me ammend my single payer proposal. Everyone pays an extra 10% healthcare payroll tax, whether they want to or not (just like with SS).
The more accurate formulation would be to say that people will be required to buy insurance or pay a penalty. For me it will be a simple calculation of which is less: the insurance premium or the penalty.
This law is far from guaranteeing that everyone will be insured. What is the plan for those who choose not to buy the insurance? Even if it is less punishing to take the insurance than the penalty, the chances are that deductibles and co-pays will be so high I that I can’t afford to use it.
IN that event the law is just a way of making me pay money to a private corporation to buy something that is useless to me.
I may be responding to the wrong point, but I don’t believe that the mandate portion of the ACA is unconstitutional (it should be, but I don’t believe it is).
That being said, I think that it’s grossly unjust and (as Jon points out) very unpopular (and politically unwise).
That’s why I have been neutral on attempts to throw it out in court; as far as I can tell, these are mostly from right-wing “you don’t have the power to compel me to do anything I don’t want to do, ever!” types. Unfortunately, AFAIK, the government DOES have the legal authorization to compel you to buy insurance. It just really SHOULDN’T do that. Single payer — or even a “public option” — would be a much more just, and workable, system.
But, IANAL.
Now we’re getting somewhere, but sorry, don’t mean to offend, but I’ve just gotta ask.
Are you a conservative??? A Republican???
LOL, because I don’t think I’ve EVER heard of a conservative Republican advocate for an additional 10% payroll tax to fund healthcare. I thought you were our resident conservative. Proposals like that and you’ll get kicked out of that club, won’t you??
When I say something is unconstitutional, I’m referring to what the framers, i.e., the authors, of the document had in my mind when they wrote it and approved it as our constitution.
And there’s no way in hell they envisioned government having the authority to mandate it’s citizens purchase goods/services from private companies. It was a limiting document on the power of government, and if this new power is approved in court, then there is no real limit AT ALL on what the government can and can’t mandate.
I stand by my assertion that it’s blatantly unconstitutional in that sense, and IANAL either.
ADDED: The argument made to mandate purchase of private health insurance is that folks who do NOT buy insurance are “participating” in the commerce of insurance in that their acts drive up the cost of insurance for others. Thus, for the first time ever, the commerce clause will be used to mandate an activity in the absence of one in the name of regulating commerce.
That said, as an example, folks who choose not to have babies, can be said to affect commerce as well. By not having babies, pediatic clinics may be empty or less than optimally filled, causing those who do use the service to pay more. Therefore, the governmen, in the name of regulating commerce, can constitutional mandate people have babies.
If you buy the insurance mandate, than there is NOTHING in the constitution prohibiting the mandate of babies either. And there is just no way in hell that’s the kind of power our framers had in mind.
It’s blatantly unconstitutional.
Why WOULDN’T the individual mandate be unpopular?
The ACA (“Obamacare”) is a fraud. It is not the wording of a law, or promises as to how it will work, that are important; it is the all-important implementing regulations, which determine how the law will work in the real world. And these regulations are being written by healthcare-denial lobbyists, who are furiously watering down and neutering the positive points in the bill to the point of unrecognizability. The one thing the thieves really like–the individual mandate–will survive, though, since it means millions of people being forced to give the criminals hard-earned money for crappy, useless health “insurance” [sic].
Yet another sellout by O’Bushma. If the ACA is ultimately thrown out, it will mean the pressure for real healthcare reform will resume again, giving us a chance to get some form of single-payer. If it survives, though, the pressure will be stifled for perhaps another decade or longer, until it becomes obvious (as it inevitably will) that it is unworkable as anything but a tool of corporatist thievery.
Here’s hoping this wormy piece of legislative shit will get repealed or declared unconstitutional.
couldn’t have said it any better.
Amen to that.
Not only does it NOT solve our health care crisis, but the precedent this sets is just far far far too awful.
If you thought the auto industry bailout was wrong, just wait until this precendent is set. Won’t be your tax dollars bailing them out next time. Next time it will be you AFTER TAX dollars bailing them out when you will be mandated to purchase a car to save the economy.
amen.
I think we are moving closer to fascism every day but more people just say that is a conspiracy theory. I suppose if it were only ACA I could abide it,but the freaking banks are driving us into hell along with europe and the thugs.
I seem to have forgotten the details of how people like me who do not have insurance were supposed to get some by 2014 even if we were willing to do so. I think most of us would end up in the high risk pool by virtue of not having had any insurance (in my case for more than a decade) and that is not even remotely affordable. At least as far as I remember. Back when all this was going on, I was paying attention and then it started to hurt my head too much. I remember us all talking about how we’d have at least some access to healthcare if we refused to pay the fines and ended up in jail . . .
The individual mandate was conceived by Republicans and passed by Democrats for the enrichment of their masters.
Along with the Citizens United ruling and the repeal of Glass–Steagall, the individual mandate will be held up by historians as symbols of the state-sponsored corruption and abuse that was the beginning of the end for the United States, when so-called leaders in all three branches of government did the exact opposite of what this country needed.
You make excellent points. The only fair way is to include the cost in general revenue with perhaps a co pay. When you can bail out banksters at, oh I don’t know, bloomberg says 7.7 trillion but Bernie Sanders has this GAO report with a 16 trillon number, why the hell can’t you provide health insurance to our citizens? Shit GDP is only 15 trillion. AW fuck I feel shitty today.
bingo. I will add the fucking on going bailouts of the banksters to the disadvantage of the people.
When pigs fly, I’m certain of it.
Then those people haven’t really been paying attention. IMHO
I’m stoked. I plan to do my best to exacerbate the free-rider problem by just paying the $750 penalty every year and then glomming onto a policy at the last possible second that I need it.
That CNN/ORG “poll” was quite a hoot, coming on the heels of Ohio’s landslide against the mandate.
How about a few other mandates to make this workable:
Minimum wage must now be a living wage that includes the cost of the basic policy as well as housing and food. The basic policy must cover X (list being the equivalent of the Swiss basic policy) AND insurance companies must cover all those bills from doctors/hospitals/pharmacies without dispute or refusal and minimal paperwork. Premium for basic policy is the cost of providing these services plus a 5% administration fee – they are absolutely non-profit. Unemployment must include the premium for your insurance. And last but not least the premium increase for basic service cannot be more then inflation without going through a committee who cannot by law have any financial ties to the insurance companies, drug companies or hospitals for two years previous to service and five years following service.
But we well know that this bill was not about providing health care, it was about making sure people kept buying expensive crap insurance as more and more employers dropped it.
One of the reasons Obama is going to lose next year is because he didn’t get what even Newt Gingrich understands. Medicare is very popular.
Seniors’ place in his campaign is perhaps the best lens for explaining some of Newt’s most perplexing early decisions, like his tendency to tack left on entitlements and right on Obama conspiracy theories. You might say, to understand Newt Gingrich you have to understand elderly anti-Obama thinking.
A lot of people were shocked in May, for example, when Gingrich came out strongly against Paul Ryan’s proposal to replace Medicare with a private voucher system, dismissing it as “right wing engineering.”…. Guess which demographic hated the proposed changes to Medicare the most…
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/newt-gingrichs-secret-weapon-old-people.php?ref=fpa