Yet Another Poll That Fails to Ask the Important Question About the Public Option

Liberals are holding up polls like this up as proof of Americans approval of the Democrats’ healthcare plan including the public option:

In our most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll respondents were asked:

"Which of these would you prefer – (a plan that includes some form of government-sponsored health insurance for people who can’t get affordable private insurance, but is approved without support from Republicans in Congress); or (a plan that is approved with support from Republicans in Congress, but does not include any form of government-sponsored health insurance for people who can’t get affordable private insurance)?"

Fifty one percent said they preferred the public option; 37 percent said they preferred a bill with some support from Republicans in Congress. Six percent said neither and seven percent expressed no opinion.

Many of the polls that they say is proof that the majority of Americans want the current health plan with the public option fail to ask about the potential consequences of such a massive government program, ie bankrupting the country. All they tend to ask about is the their feelings on the public option in more general terms like: Do you like the idea of the public option?

In my post a few days ago, I brought up an interview done with Sen. Mary Landrieu where she hit this problem right on the head:

Asked about polls showing public support for a government plan, Landrieu said the questions should be phrased differently."

I think if you asked, do you want a public option but it would force the government to go bankrupt, people would say no," she said.

I know that I’ve used that quote twice, now, but it just seemed so perfect for this post, as well. It is a good example of the type of polls that Sen. Landrieu and I were talking about yesterday.

To me, this poll shows that people definitely want something done, and they don't care about the partisan squabbling. It doesn't necessarily mean that they want the public option at all costs.

Updated: WSJ: Public Option Could Triple Insurance Premiums

Democrats claim that the public option will not increase people's current insurance premiums. However, a new study by Wellpoint shows that some insurance premiums could actually triple under the health reform legislation:

At the request of Congressional delegations worried about their constituents—call it a public service—WellPoint mined its own actuarial data to model ObamaCare in the 14 states where it runs Blue Cross plans. The study therefore takes into account market and demographic differences that other industry studies have not, such as the one from the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans, which looked at aggregate national trends.

In all of the 14 states WellPoint scrutinized, ObamaCare would drive up premiums for the small businesses and individuals who are most of WellPoint's customers. (Other big insurers, like Aetna, focus on the market among large businesses.) Young and healthy consumers will see the largest increases—their premiums would more than triple in some states—though average middle-class buyers will pay more too.

In the spirit of full-disclosure, Wellpoint is an insurance company and has their own agenda in this debate. Democrats made this perfectly clear in their response to this report:

"This is yet another insurance-industry report that twists the facts to produce a skewed result," averred Linda Douglass, the White House communications director on health care. Said a spokesman for the Senate Finance Committee, "This is akin to the tobacco companies commissioning another study claiming nicotine isn't addictive and cigarettes don't cause cancer."

You may have to take this report with a grain of salt, but it is still some pretty damning results. It is a very detailed with a lot of stats and analysis to back it up.

Updated

Evan Bayh Joins Blue Dogs Against the Public Option, Further Adding To Reid's Woes

According to Major Garrett on Twitter, here and here, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) joins Lieberman and Landrieu against Harry Reid's public option plan:

Dem Sen. Evan Bayh tells Fox he's uncommitted on Reid Public Option. "There are a variety of things that I think might work better"


More Bayh: If Public Option raises deficit: "I would have just a very hard time moving forward on something like that."

This is basically the same as both Lieberman and Landrieu said in my last post, but it's interesting that the number of Democrats coming out against the public option is growing rapidly.

Liebermann, Landrieu Throw Reid & His Health Care Reform Bill With Public Option Under the Bus

Just after Harry Reid said that he's close to getting 60 votes in the senate to pass his healthcare reform bill, Sen. Joe Lieberman threw a monkey wrench into the majority leader's plans, earlier today:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill.

Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid’s has said the Senate bill will.

"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now."

Lieberman added that he’d vote against a public option plan “even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line."

His comments confirmed that Reid is short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill out of the Senate, even after Reid included the opt-out provision. Several other moderate Democrats expressed skepticism at the proposal as well, but most of the wavering Democratic senators did not go as far as Lieberman Tuesday, saying they were waiting to see the details.

The Democrats had been courting Maine Republican Olympia Snowe to vote with the Democrats for a false sense of bi-partisanship and to be a "shield" for the Blue Dogs in their more conservative districts from being labeled a liberal, if they voted for the bill.

Now, they still seem to be having trouble even getting some of their own people to stand behind Reid's bill with the public option. Senator Mary Landrieu had some harsh words to say about the public option, as well::

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) echoed Republican criticisms of a public option today, suggesting it would bankrupt the country.

Describing the public option as a government-run, taxpayer subsidized, national insurance plan, Landrieu said it would likely replicate the problems faced by Medicare and Medicaid.

Why don't we fix the two public options we have now instead of creating a third one, she told NPR's Tell Me More.

Ouch! She hit it on the right on the head here. We already have a program much like the public option plan presented in the bills, and they are going bankrupt. We wouldn't hire the failed CEO of Lehman to run a multi-million business. Why would we get our government with an equally bad track record to run insurance for millions of Americans?

Reid, of course, jumped the gun the other day, when he all but declared "Mission Accomplished!" on the public option battle. Today, we see that is far from reality. We have not heard the last of this, yet.

There have been some polls that say that the majority of Americans like the idea of the public option, but Landrieu blasts the pollsters on how they got those results:

Asked about polls showing public support for a government plan, Landrieu said the questions should be phrased differently.

I think if you asked, do you want a public option but it would force the government to go bankrupt, people would say no, she said.

Again, right on the money. The various pollsters, especially from left-leaning organizations like Kos, intentionally ask the questions in a way to where they are more likely to get a more liberal result.

As the Democrats realize that the public doesn't like their plan overall, the more the Democrats will have to distance themselves from the public option, if they want to be re-elected.

All this does not bode well for the survival of the Reid's bill and the public option.

Watch Out Mommy: The Taxman Is Coming

New moms may need to redo their budgets and make more room for Uncle Sam because he's coming to reach into their wallets deeper.

When Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus proposed taxing medical devices to raise $40 billion over the next 10 years for his health care plan, opponents started digging in and looking at what would be taxed. It turned out feminine products, like tampons, were classified as class I medical devices and thus, the “tampon tax” was born.

The backlash was quick and severe enough against the idea that the committee quickly drafted new language that would exempt those necessities from the tax, along with all other class I devices, like tongue depressors, and decided to only tax class II medical devices and higher that cost less than $100.

They sure did backpeddle on that one. It was like a 2-yr-old who had his/her hand caught in the cookie jar.

Apparently, they are determined to make women of child-bearing age pay more one way or another:

But, just wait for the revolt to start again because women will still pay a price under the new structure. Particularly new moms who want to use a powered breast pump to bottle milk for their babies. Those devices, labeled class II, typically retails for more than $100.

Unfortunately, they didn't stop there. They decided to go after just about anyone else that might ever need major medical care:

And, all the rest of the more expensive, higher-class medical devices used by both men an women -- such as pacemakers, ventilators, X-ray machines, powered wheelchairs and surgical needles -- will be taxed, too.

As an added slap to the face of the patients that the Democrats are claiming to be trying to save money on health care:

(Wanda Moebius, vice president of policy communications at the Advanced Medical Technology Association) also noted that the proposed taxes would be based on a medical-device producer’s revenue, not profit, which will require businesses to pay more money to the government than a tax on profits.

Great! The political tax machine needs more of our money, and they pulled just about every trick in the book to achieve their objective of paying for the horrendous public option health plan by taxing various aspects of health care. Does robbing Peter to pay Paul mean anything to anyone?

How are they going to save people money on health care, if they are raising taxes on the same health care that they're supposed to be paying less for?

No wonder some Democrats are hesitating to let the media and the rest of us common folk actually have the ablility to read the bills.