Saturday, July 18, 2009

Democrats against Democrats on Health Care...

I received this via e-mail:

Lisa Renee -

Vote Now
We need your help with an important decision.

Democracy for America has teamed up with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee to run tough ads pressuring Democratic Senators who've taken millions of dollars from health and insurance interests while standing in the way of one of President Obama's top priorities -- a public healthcare option.

The question is: who do you want to see us pressure first with TV ads in their home state?


Our ads don't pull any punches, because it's up to us to make sure Democratic elected officials feel some heat if they're on the verge of opposing the President and 76% of Americans who want a public option.

Here are eight senators who may stand in the way of the public option -- along with the total amount of money they’ve received from health and insurance interests. Who should we target first with local ads?

Sen. Max Baucus $3,973,485
Sen. Evan Bayh $1,565,088
Sen. Kent Conrad $2,154,200
Sen. Dianne Feinstein $1,749,887
Sen. John Kerry $8,994,077
Sen. Mary Landrieu $1,653,943
Sen. Joe Lieberman $3,308,621
Sen. Ben Nelson $2,214,715


The problem is of course that they are basing this on a poll of only 1008 adults that if you actually read the polling data? Was not an accurate representation of American voters, here are the political persuasions of those polled:

Strong Democrat ...21
Not very strong Democrat ..10
Independent/lean Democrat ...10
Strictly independent ...18
Independent/lean Republican...9
Not very strong Republican ..7
Strong Republican ...14
Other (VOL) ..7
Not sure ....4

If you take the time to read the full poll, and you have faith in such polling, only 33% think Obama's health care plan is a good idea - 32% think it's a bad idea and 30% don't know. The actual question related to the public plan is not shared accurately - the poll question actually was:

34a. In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance––extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?

Extremely important ....41
Quite important ....35
Not that important ..12
Not at all important ...8
Not sure ....4

This same polling group also feels that by a margin of 44% that we should initiate a military action against North Korea...Not to mention 20% of them have a unfavorable opinion towards Muslims. Five percent of them were not sure who they voted for as President and 18 percent didn't vote. The largest percentage of the polling base as far as employment? Retired at 27%...Thirty nine percent stated they went to Church more than once a week.

These are not stats that match up to the Average American voter...BUT if you are going to cite this poll as being accurate then you can't cherry pick one question, and the reality is this same group that thought there should be a public option either doesn't support or doesn't know if they support Obama's health plan by a 62% majority.

Which means most of American, including those polled, either don't support this plan or don't know enough about it. I tend to believe with the latter because there is so much misinformation out there, it's hard for the Average American voter to even know what they should believe.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am against national health care.
Children have medicaid, Pregnant women get excellent health care from excellent doctors, excellent hospitals all paid by the federal gov't and the same doctors and hospitals ones who have insurance. I am from Louisiana and encourage Senator Landrieu NOT to vote for socialist healthcare. The working tax paying people are tired of these free programs for the unemployed. Free food, free medical care, free housing, free transportation, YOU can only tax the working people before we become a lazy country and all will reap the benefits of the free stuff.

Anonymous said...

You are so right. Accept eventually, the money runs out. Then our country will be forced to file bankruptcy. Take economics 101, and accounting, its simple. If the government doesn't have the money to run these programs, we will fall. It is not a question or a threat, just pure common sense.