{"id":426,"date":"2010-10-06T15:05:43","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T19:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/archives\/watch-out-for-those-health-care-reform-polls\/"},"modified":"2010-10-06T15:05:43","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T19:05:43","slug":"watch-out-for-those-health-care-reform-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/archives\/watch-out-for-those-health-care-reform-polls\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Out for Those Health Care Reform Polls"},"content":{"rendered":"

The AP recently released poll results<\/a> on how people feel about the health care reform bill. Commenting on it, Kevin Drum says<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Atrios<\/a> links to a Dave Dayen<\/a> post that links to a report that says, “A new AP poll finds that Americans who think the law should have done more outnumber those who think the government should stay out of health care by 2-to-1.” And the poll does say that.<\/a> However, it doesn’t say what “done more” means, and the actual numbers suggest that a more liberal law wouldn’t have been any more popular than what we got. Here are the basic results from the AP poll: 30% favor the healthcare reform law, 40% oppose, and 30% aren’t sure. Then they asked the 70% who were opposers and not surers a second question:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

HC1A. Which of the following best expresses your view of the health care law that Congress passed last March?<\/strong>I oppose most or all of the changes made by the law \t\t\t\t\t 28<\/p>\n

I oppose a few of the changes made by the law \t\t\t\t\t 20<\/p>\n

I favor most or all of the changes made by the law, but I think that law doesn\u2019t do enough to improve the health care system \t\t\t\t\t 23<\/p>\n

I oppose the law because I think the federal government should not be involved in health care at all \t\t\t\t\t\t\t 28<\/p>\n

Refused 1<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So 23% of that 70% thought the law didn’t do enough. That’s 16%. Add that to the 30% who favor the law and you get 46%.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kevin goes on:<\/p>\n

That leaves 54% who oppose all or most of the law. So you’re still at 54%-46% opposed, and this is the best case since it’s possible that making the law more liberal might also have turned some of the favorers into opposers. . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t think this argument holds up as support for Kevin’s point which, again is:<\/p>\n

. . . the actual numbers suggest that a more liberal law wouldn’t have been any more popular than what we got.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s look at some other findings from the AP survey:<\/p>\n

\n

[ASK IF HC1 = FAVOR STRONGLY, FAVOR SOMEWHAT OR NEITHER FAVOR NOR OPPOSE]HC1B. Do you think that the health care law passed last March by Congress should have done more to change the health care system, or do you not think that?<\/p>\n

It should have done more \t\t\t\t\t61<\/p>\n

Do not think that \t\t\t\t\t\t36<\/p>\n

Refused \t\t\t\t\t\t\t 3<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Since the \u201cfavors \u201cand \u201cnot surers\u201d total 60%, we see that 37% of the total responding to the survey considering these categories alone think that the HCR bill should have done more, which suggests they would have favored \u201ca more liberal law.\u201d Unfortunately, the survey didn’t include the \u201copposers\u201d of the bill when asking HC1B. They just assumed that people opposing the bill don’t oppose it because they favor something more liberal. I don’t know how large this group is, but I belong to it myself, and many of the Medicare for All advocates I know also oppose the HCR bill, and were opposed to it when it passed. How big is this sub-group of opposers?<\/p>\n

What we know from the AP survey responses to HC1A, is that 48% of the 70% in the oppose\/not sure total, or 34% of the total were either in the \u201cI oppose most or all of the changes made by the law,\u201d or the \u201cI oppose a few of the changes made by the law.\u201d Possible additions to the 37% group that would favor a more liberal law are most likely to come from this 34%, since respondents in the \u201cI favor most or all of the changes made by the law, but I think that law doesn\u2019t do enough to improve the health care system,\u201d are much more likely to come from the \u201cnot surers\u201d and to already be part of the 37% of the total, than they are to be part of the 34% in the above two categories who explicitly oppose the bill.<\/p>\n

So, how much of the 34% is \u201cprogressive\u201d opposition to the HCR bill? If we assume that it is 50%, that would bring the total of those favoring a more liberal bill up to 52%. But what if it were 80%? Then the total favoring \u201ca more liberal law\u201d climbs to 64%, Is this possibility far-fetched?<\/p>\n

Well, first, note that HC1A responses also include the category \u201cI oppose the law because I think the federal government should not be involved in health care at all.\u201d Almost 20% of the sample selected this category. Meaning that 80% of respondents do not reject a federal role in the health care system, and that 80%, of course, must include the possible 64% favoring \u201ca more liberal law.\u201d However, from the responses to HC1B, we also know that those in the \u201cfavor\u201d\/\u201dnot sure\u201d segment who don’t think the HCR bill should have \u201cdone more\u201d total almost 22%, leaving 58% of respondents who might favor \u201ca more liberal law.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, it looks like Kevin Drum’s conclusion that a maximum of 46% would have a favored a more liberal HCR bill is much too conservative. On the results of this particular survey the numbers may be as high as 58%, and there is reason to think that 58% is much closer to the truth than 46%. Here are the reasons. First, this survey was incompetently designed. Why weren’t people asked, very simply, whether they would have preferred: 1) no change at all; 2) a bill that made fewer changes; 3) the bill that was passed; 4) a bill with a public option everyone was eligible to participate in; 5) a bill providing for Medicare for All; and 6) a bill providing for National Health Care. The responses to that would have settled the question of whether the public wanted \u201ca more liberal bill,\u201d or not. As it is, the questions deliver ambiguous and vague responses, and don’t focus in on policy alternatives people know at least a little bit about. It’s very hard to tell where opposition to the HCR bill comes from. Second, why decide to restrict HC1A to only part of the sample? Can one really assume that all the opposers would oppose a more liberal bill?<\/p>\n

Next, Kevin’s interpretation of the results of this survey is inconsistent with previous surveys on health care reform which show, roughly, that almost 2\/3 of the public favor Medicare for All in health care reform. Previous survey evidence is reviewed by Kip Sullivan in this series<\/a>. Kip’s results are pretty unambiguous. The AP survey itself, is not necessarily inconsistent with his findings, provided the HC1B responses showing 61% favoring the idea that the Congress should have \u201cdone more,\u201d can be projected across the rest of the sample. But the survey design made it difficult to evaluate that.<\/p>\n

Finally, the AP survey is another example of one whose design is heavily biased towards the narrative that America is a center-right nation. The possibility that, at least on health reform, the American public is favorably oriented to Medicare for All, or other Government-based solutions couldn’t be tested in this survey because of its bias. Designers bias surveys in their selection and construction of question, even more than they do in their reporting of their results. So, all HCR surveys need to be read with a very critical eye.<\/p>\n

(Cross-posted at FireDogLake<\/a> and Correntewire.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The AP recently released poll results on how people feel about the health care reform bill. Commenting on it, Kevin Drum says: Atrios links to a Dave Dayen post that links to a report that says, “A new AP poll finds that Americans who think the law should have done more outnumber those who think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[693],"tags":[3419,3420,3421,3422,1977,2025,3423,1659],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-ap-healh-care-refom-survey","tag-atrios","tag-david-dayen","tag-kevin-drum","tag-kip-sullivan","tag-medicare-for-all","tag-mother-jones","tag-public-option"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}