Poll: 80% Want Public Health Option
DENVER, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- While eight of 10 Americans say they favor a public health insurance option, fewer than four in 10 can define what that option is, an AARP survey indicates.
The poll, conducted by Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates for AARP, was presented Tuesday in Denver, the Denver Business Journal reported Wednesday.
While results suggest strong agreement among respondents that healthcare delivery and payment must change, it also indicated less agreement on whether the matter required higher taxes or insurance premiums, said Charlie Cook, a political analyst in Washington.
Under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform proposal, a public option would be offered as one choice in a cafeteria-style menu of health insurance packages available to consumers. Some opponents of the public option say it would lead to government-run healthcare.
Congress is deep in partisan and philosophical debate over the shape of healthcare reform, with criticism of Obama's plan that includes a public insurance option coming from both Republicans and conservative Democrats.
Poll results indicated nearly 65 percent of those surveyed said they oppose increasing taxes to pay for covering the more than 46 million uninsured Americans, the business journal said. However, a majority polled said they believed all people should be covered and 73 percent said they are unwilling to see private health insurance premiums rise to cover those costs.
The nationwide poll surveyed 1,000 adults identifying themselves Democrats, Republicans or independents this month.
Koba's Note: I've never seen a poll on this issue below 70%. Your move Slothen. 
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August 28th, 2009 - 18:36
Options? I want options! Giveme giveme giveme! Slow, fast, cheap, taxes? I don’t care, just make me, standard American think their opinion matters!
September 1st, 2009 - 11:48
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/the_public_option_no_perfect_p.php
This article touches on some key problems with the polling process and this subject in general. It points out that these polls are not just a flat rate of asking x persons whether they are for of against the public option. It starts with the basic question, then continues with hypothetical questions about a nebulous “public ‘option’” that has not even been fully fleshed out by it’s creators. These hypothetical can include any number of items which have no bearing on the actual subject at hand, but are created to obtain a false positive on the side of those who disagree with the reality of the public ‘option’. Those false positives are added to those who already said yes, to create astronomical false numbers such as your 80%. This is also completely ignoring the use of regional bias to tilt an issue in whatever direction, while keeping a marginal quantity of dissenters to fallaciously suggest an unbiased sampling. As I’ve already stated, polls are bullshit.
The linked article is good for exposing the flaws of polling, but still fails to address the fact that the so called “public ‘option’” is nothing of the sort. It was designed and marketed to the democratic candidates to leech customers from private insurance agencies to leech customers from private firms by offering an almost unlimited pool of cash siphoned off the taxpayers. No private insurance agency can compete with an unlimited cash flow. This is nothing more than an attempt to covertly nationalize a private industry. The plan that claims to increase choices will suck all competition dry, killing all other choices while offering unreasonable payouts to anyone who switches over. Once it has a monopoly on the industry, it will restrict care to make up for the glut of spending in it’s competitive days. By that time it will be a a voting block all on it’s own, and even though a vast majority will wish for the days of personalized care, quick results, and medical innovation, the sprawling mass of bureaucrats and jobless dependents will fight tooth and nail to keep their stranglehold on everyone-else’s money.
September 2nd, 2009 - 15:09
Yes, yes, this data is wrong because it does not relate to the 20% approval of fox news subscribers who cared to vote in their pole, which they now HAVE to claim as non-scientific.
September 5th, 2009 - 09:48
Just because Slothens statement points out flaws in an article you want to believe in does not make him a fan of fox news. He was simply stating there are flaws in the polling system. And I happen to agree, a poll can be made to agree with anything you want. I suggest watching the polling Bullshit episode. Here is a link I have for ya. http://jumbodump.com/2006/07/17/penn-and-teller-bullshit-poll-numbers-bible-prostitution-video-nsfw/
September 7th, 2009 - 04:08
I would prefer that everyone just stopped using polls altogether. They have never been anything more than a means of of falsifying public opinion so you can sell peer pressure to people who disagree with you. This is a better article than the one I used earlier. I would have used this one, but it came out like a week after this article was posted.
http://reason.com/news/show/135873.html