While 78 percent of Americans say the current health care system meets their needs "very" or "pretty" well, and 75 percent consider their health insurance coverage to be good, 79 percent say the system is in need of reform, according to a
Franklin & Marshall poll conducted Sept. 15-21. Sixty-five percent of those say they feel very strongly about the need for reform and 28 percent say they feel "somewhat" strongly.
Get the new
PD toolbar!For the 21 percent who say the current system is not meeting their needs, 56 percent point to cost as the major reason, 22 percent cite medical needs that are not covered, 18 percent said doctors or facilities were not meeting their needs and 15 percent said it was because they didn't have coverage. Nine percent said they had been turned down for insurance because of a pre-existing condition.
Twenty-three percent said they did not fill a prescription for medicine in the last 12 months because of cost and an equal percentage skipped a recommended test or medical treatment for the same reason.
Forty-seven percent say the system has so many problems it needs to be completely rebuilt, while 43 percent believe it needs only minor changes.
Those polled say the top priority is to provide coverage for everyone (16 percent chose this).
Testing perceptions of health care reform proposals based on what they have heard or read, 17 percent responded "government-run health care, government control," 13 percent said that everyone would be insured and government would help pay, 10 percent described the proposals as confusing or unclear and 9 percent were aware of the debate over the public option.
Those polled said by 47 percent to 21 percent that President Obama has better ideas about health care reform than Republicans in Congress.
There has certainly been a glut of polling on health care reform, and it may be the polls, by this point, are not telling us anything new. Nate Silver of the blog
FiveThirtyEight.com thinks the battle for public opinion has now been fought to a draw. He wrote last week:
The numbers are liable to be fairly stubborn from this point forward. Both sides have really fired all their bullets here. Obama gave his big speech. The Democrats have also probably outmaneuvered the Republicans on maintaining the appearance of bipartisanship -- although to what ultimate end, I don't know. On the other hand, the public remains confused and skeptical over the details of health care reform, in ways that it is probably too late to reverse. The Republicans have played the socialism card, the death panels card, the deficits card, and pretty much everything else in their arsenal. The town halls, mercifully for Democrats, are over.
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