Monday, May 24, 2010

Health care reform more popular than ever

Sorry, that was misleading. The repeal of HCR is more popular than ever:

Support for repeal of the new national health care plan has jumped to its highest level ever. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 63% of U.S. voters now favor repeal of the plan passed by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Obama in March.
Wait, but wasn't the strategy of the White House to accelerate the roll-out of health care reforms so that Americans would appreciate this superb piece of legislation? Maybe those who were polled saw this report from the Hill indicating that Obamacare is dissuading small businesses from hiring new workers:

A study by the National Center for Policy Analysis shows that tax credits in the new healthcare law could negatively impact small-business hiring decisions.
Oh, and businesses who already have workers? Well, according to today's NY Times, they could be socked with additional penalties:

About one-third of employers subject to major requirements of the new health care law may face tax penalties because they offer health insurance that could be considered unaffordable to some employees, a new study says.
The study, by Mercer, one of the nation’s largest employee benefit consulting concerns, is based on a survey of nearly 3,000 employers.
It suggests that a little-noticed provision of the law could affect far more employers than Congress had assumed.
A "little noticed provision" deep within a 2,500 bill? Who saw that coming?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

In other poll results, 83% of Red Sox fans agree Derek Jeter is a fartface.

Nate Silver, 538.com:
"Since Labor Day, Rasmussen polls have shown Democrats with a 3.7-point identification advantage among all adults, on average. This is the smallest margin for the Democrats among any of 16 pollsters who have published results on this question, who instead show a Democratic advantage ranging from 5.2 to 13.0 points, with an average of 9.6... The bottom line is this: the sample included in Rasmussen's polling is increasingly out of balance with that observed by almost all other pollsters. This appears to create a substantial house effect, irrespective of whether Rasmussen subsequently applies a likely voter screen... It is not sufficient, after all, to believe that Rasmussen is getting it right: you also have to believe that almost everyone else is getting it wrong."

Tim Burns ran on an explicit "I will vote to repeal health care" platform in a McCain district. He got swamped.

It has been increasingly noted that despite releasing the most poll results of any survey, Rasmussen avoids polling actual races until late in the cycle, at which point their GOP-friendly results mysteriously gravitate back towards the rest of the pack.

Unlike most major pollsters, Rasmussen essentially sat out last week's high-profile primaries. Silver calls this "a strange disappearing act -- when it was actually time to put their necks on the line." Happily, they can't ever be proven wrong on issues polling.

Eric said...

Mark Crist ran on a "I hate Obamacare too" platform.

Also, are you really going to shoot the messenger? OK, pick a non-Rassmussen poll from this list:

http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/healthplan.php

Anonymous said...

Great chart. But where's the "63% opposed" in any of those other 190+ polls? Oh, that's right... nowhere. Nowhere except in the results only Rasmussen knows how to find.

You may notice that the red line that represents the averaged "against" opinion is going down, not up. You may notice it, but don't worry, Rasmussen won't.

Mark Crist explicitly said he would not vote to repeal health care reform, including in the face-to-face debate with Tim Burns. If Crist is going to be the standard-bearer for anti-Obama rage, the GOP is in a lot of trouble.

Whoozit said...

Who's Mark Crist? Is he related to Charlie Critz?

538com said...

Today, more from Nate Silver on Rasmussen's unique results:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/05/new-poll-of-500-political-junkies.html#comments

Are you really going to shoot the messenger? said...

And a day later, even MORE from Nate Silver about Rasmussen Reports' on-message press releas... er, scientific polling:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/05/wisconsin-senate-feingold-46-smithee-r.html#comments