If you are wondering why single payer insurance never gets anywhere...

[SaveElmer]

On an issue where overwhelming support must be generated before a particular solution can be implemented...America is divided...even Democrats are divided...

A survey conducted September 29-30 found that 51% of American adults initially supported the notion that health care should be made available for free to all Americans. The survey also found that most Americans (52%) believed that such an approach would decrease the quality of health care in the United States. Just 29% thought it would improve the overall quality of care.

Forty-nine percent (49%) believe that making care available for free to everyone would increase the nation’s overall cost of providing care. Just 22% thought it would result in savings. Fifty-two percent (52%) thought that, when taxes were considered, the proposal would end up costing them more than they pay now. Just 28% thought their own costs would go down.

Despite these concerns, when asked to consider these impacts, 47% of adults continued to support the concept of providing health care for free to all Americans.

However, that support falters when people are asked to support a plan that provides coverage for all but requires everyone with insurance to “change their coverage and join a program administered by the government.” A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey conducted October 9-10 found that just 31% of adults would support that plan.

One big reason for the drop in support is that 68% of those who are already insured believe their own health care coverage would get worse. Only 18% think it would improve. Eighty-two percent (82%) of those surveyed are currently insured.

A plurality (45%) of Democrats favor offering free health care to all even if it required making everyone with insurance to switch. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats oppose such a plan. However, Republicans oppose it by a 70% to 18% margin. Those not affiliated with either major party are opposed by a 46% to 28% margin.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/free_health_care_not_if_it_means_switching_insurance_coverage

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Boiling it down, a majority of taxpayers finds it objectionable, if not offensive, that they

will be paying for someone else's healthcare and medical bills instead of theirs exclusively. The idea of community is still equated with socialism.

It's the narrow-minded viewpoint that takes precedence over resolving a health crisis.

[PATRICK]

5. Effect of RW propaganda

is that "socialized medicine" and the British or canadian system is "bad". Starting from simplistic uncritical nonsense is how they beat that chunk of the populace into Iraq and all sorts of lies.

When the nation finally gets and switches away from the propaganda and the lies(taxation to ease debt, rebuild infrastructure, campaign finance reform, etc)- the media stops polling and listening to the people in that way. The burden on the popular opinion always shifts in favor of the RW and the corporate no matter what the stage of the reform or question is. Ignorance and propaganda is always given the advantage, like the heavyweight champ of political discussions. Social Security IS a popular given but the lies are accepted as a popular "addendum"(personal privatized accounts). They always inject the ignorance, the temptation to selfish greed, the softness of opinion to continually work against the public's best interests.

[slackmaster]

7. I think people understand that they are already paying for other peoples' health care

At least those of us who have a basic understanding of how any insurance system works.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. I agree. But for reasons beyond my understanding, as soon as you're

talking about tax dollars versus insurance dollars, certain people make a distinction. The logic escapes me.

[rucky]

13. It's the mentality that private corporations can do it faster/cheaper/better.

Even though it's been proven wrong at nearly every turn.

[Romulox]

12. Have you ever heard of Medicare?

Socialism is just fine by some. What's sad is that many of the opponents of single payer are carrying Medicare cards... :(

[Armstead]

2. No one is talking about "free" care for everyone

Rather the goal is to make it affordable and accessible to everyone.

And it is not surprising that a majority would not want to see a single-payer government program. Amdricans are inherently suspicious of government.

HOWEVER, perhaps if that poll had also asked if people were in favor of eliminating Medicare, most would most likely defend that government run program to the hilt.

That's the problem with "politics by polling." People often give a knee jerk response to slanted and simplistic questions. And the muddled responses means that nothing gets done.

Politicians should be pro-active and give people something to support. Niot simply tell them what they think people want to hear.

[SaveElmer]

3. Or...do what Hillary and Edwards have proposed...

Give them a government run option...let them get used to having good service from a Government run program...make private insurance compete for consumers business...

Makes the next step easier...

How most big social and economic change occurs...incrementally...

[AlGore-08.com]

8. No, most big social and economic changes occur because we hit a tipping point

That is far too often the result of a disaster.

Additionally, there is another way to deal with an unpopular idea than just accepting that it's unpopular; you can work to make the idea popular. I believe it's often referred to as "leadership".

[SaveElmer]

10. That is simply not true...

There are certainly instances of that...but the vast majority of truly large change occur over many, many years, and are arrived at through incremental steps...

AS this poll clearly indicates, while Health Care is a top priority for people, it is not food as such an urgent matter that they are willing to hand over the choices they make to someone else...

[Armstead]

14. It's been many years, and we've had incremental change in the wrong direction

Back in the late 80's and early 1990's, the health care system was perceived as a major problem. That's largely what Bill Clinton ran on. There was already a popular will for change in the system.

Since then, however, the system was ignored by politicians for many years. Rather than actually trying to persistently push through meaningful reforms, the Democrats backed away almost completely from the issue, and watched as more and more people lost their insurance, or found the cost increasingly burdensome.

If they had actually tried to keep up the fight, their failure might be forgivable.

But instead they walked away from it, and allowed the system to become incresasingly broken.

[midlife_mo_Jo]

15. That would get my vote in a nano second

I really believe change will only happen incrementally, so it has the greatest chance of success.

Even in Canada, "universal" healthcare started in one province - if I remember correctly - and the idea caught on countrywide.

[mike_c]

4. education is the answer....

eom

[slackmaster]

6. Makes sense, nobody wants to give up what they've got for uncertainty

Selling a single-payer plan would take a lot of convincing evidence that nobody would end up worse off than they are now. A very detailed plan.

[PurityOfEssence]

11. Just as Goldwater brought down Nixon, it'll be the business community that makes this happen

Ideologues who froth at the mouth at anything that's not private and for profit and lobbyists for the insurance, pharmaceutical and medical industries don't have enough combined muscle to survive the onslaught of the rest of the business world when they finally wise up to the burden they're carrying that their foreign competitors aren't.

It'll be an odd twist of history, but the free market will give us this necessary bit of socialism in the end.

[demodonkey]

16. Thank God for SiCKO and Michael Moore at least making a dent in this crap! nt