New Poll Undercuts GOP Claims of a Midterm Mandate

Monday 22 November 2010

by: Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers | Report

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(Photo: gregor_y)

Washington - A majority of Americans want the Congress to keep the new health care law or actually expand it, despite Republican claims that they have a mandate from the people to kill it, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

The post-election survey showed that 51 percent of registered voters want to keep the law or change it to do more, while 44 percent want to change it to do less or repeal it altogether.

Driving support for the law: Voters by margins of 2-1 or greater want to keep some of its best-known benefits, such as barring insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. One thing they don't like: the mandate that everyone must buy insurance.

At the same time, the survey showed that a majority of voters side with the Democrats on another hot-button issue, extending the Bush era tax cuts that are set to expire Dec. 31 only for those making less than $250,000.

The poll also showed the country split over ending the "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibiting gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, with 47 percent favoring its repeal and 48 percent opposing it.

The results signal a more complicated and challenging political landscape for Republicans in Congress than their sweeping midterm wins suggested. Party leaders call the election a mandate, and vow votes to repeal the health care law and to block an extension of middle-class tax cuts unless tax cuts for the wealthy also are extended.

"The political give and take is very different than public opinion," said Lee M. Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., which conducted the poll. "On health care, there is a wide gap between public opinion and the political community."

Far from the all-or-nothing positions staked out by politicians and pundits, Americans are more divided about the health care law.

On the side favoring it, 16 percent of registered voters want to let it stand as is.

Another 35 percent want to change it to do more. Among groups with pluralities who want to expand it: women, minorities, people younger than 45, Democrats, liberals, Northeasterners and those making less than $50,000 a year.

Lining up against the law, 11 percent want to amend it to rein it in.

Another 33 percent want to repeal it.

Among groups with pluralities favoring repeal: men, whites, those older than 45, those making more than $50,000 annually, conservatives, Republicans and tea party supporters.

Independents, who swung to the Republicans in the Nov. 2 elections, are evenly divided on how to handle the health care law, with 36 percent for repealing it and 12 percent for restraining it — a total of 48 percent negative — while 34 percent want to expand it and 14 percent want to leave it as is — also totaling 48 percent.

Several benefits of the new law are broadly popular.

Registered voters by a margin of 59 percent to 36 percent want to keep the requirement that insurance companies provide coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Among supporters, Republicans want to keep that part of the law rather than repeal it by a margin of 51-45. Independents want to keep it by a margin of 59-37. Even 46 percent of conservatives and 48 percent of tea party supporters want to keep it.

The section of the law requiring insurance companies to allow young adults to remain on their parents' policies until age 26 also is popular, with voters saying keep it rather than repeal it by a margin of 68 percent to 29 percent.

Among those who like it, 75 percent of women, 80 percent of independent women, and 54 percent of Republican women.

Voters, by a margin of 57 percent to 32 percent, also want to keep the part of the law that closes the so-called "donut hole" in Medicare prescription drug coverage.

They turn a solid thumbs down on the law's mandate that every American must buy insurance, with 65 percent calling that unconstitutional and 29 percent saying it should be kept.

A majority of every type of American called the mandate wrong, except for Democrats overall and Democratic men in particular. Among critics of the mandate: 50 percent of liberals, 53 percent of Democratic women, 68 percent of independents, and 83 percent of tea party supporters.

As Congress prepares to debate whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, the poll showed that 51 percent want to extend the tax cuts only for households making less than $250,000 a year, and 45 percent want to extend the tax cuts for all.

Those who support tax cuts only for those making less than $250,000 a year include minorities, Democrats, liberals and moderates, women, college graduates, Midwesterners and Northeasterners.

Those who want to extend all of the tax cuts, including for the wealthy, include Republicans, tea party supporters, conservatives, Southerners and Westerners,

Independents were closely divided, with 49 percent for extending only the "middle class" tax cuts, and 48 percent for extending all of them.

METHODLOGY

This survey of 1,020 adults was conducted Nov. 15-18. Adults 18 and older residing in the continental U.S. were interviewed by telephone. Telephone numbers were selected based upon a list of telephone exchanges from throughout the nation. The exchanges were selected to ensure that each region was represented in proportion to its population. To increase coverage, this land-line sample was supplemented by respondents reached through random dialing of cell phone numbers. The two samples were then combined. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

There are 810 registered voters. The results for this subset have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. There are 371 Democrats and Democratic leaning independents and 337 Republicans and Republican leaning independents. The results for these subsets have margins of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points and plus or minus 5.5 percentage points, respectively. The error margin increases for cross-tabulations.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/22/104152/poll-majority-of-americans-want.html

Interesting.

And the polling majority was Republican leaning.

Maybe my math is wrong but it doesn't seem like the numbers add up.

1,020 surveyed.

810 registered

371 democrats

337 republican

So that means 210 weren't registered?

371+ 337=708 not810
708+ 210=918 not 1020

Maybe it's just me but I don't know if I'd trust a poll taken by people who can't add.

more liberal math... so we are supposed to trust alleged "poll" taken by some liberal genius just to save an ignorant presidents fundamentalist view?

All politicians are liars.......just read about the earmarks placed on the water easement by two democratic politician and one republican politician.....the republican politician claims that it wasn't an earmark....well what do you call it when pump up the price to cover programs in your state for a yes vote hmmmmmmmmm......now the democrats that did never stated they were anti-earmark but the republican did............so much for the anti-earmarks.....or ban on earmarks and not placing them in the bills for votes..........I have an idea why don't we sell all our politicians into slavery to cover the deficit with China and Japan...........no you're right they wouldn't have them either.........Politicians should be issued death sentences to hang until pronounced dead............

Have you ever seen a more biased article. All those "the people who voted this way include..." You can do that for just about anything as long as one voter fits what you want to say they "include".

Polls are ridiculous.......the sampling patterns......age group......ethnicity....etc all influence polls......I do not place any stock in polls....even if they do their best most are off somewhat.....

I've never been polled so I really wonder how these things work. Do the pollsters go out to an area where they will find the highest majority of people who are more likely to agree with the agenda at hand? I'm not buying it, lets take another poll after 2014 and see what people think of it then.

I thought it was interesting considering that it should be considerably more that are not liking health care reform.

I am all for the health care bill with a few exceptions but I believe we have a base to work from.. I will continue to fight to keep what was done and build on it.

I guess it depends on what the poll shows as to who trusts it huh?

It doesn't matter to me what the poll shows I don't trust them......actually they can make any poll outcome show what they want it to show

For one its an obviously bias poll based on what I already stated. Secondly people who do polls can call demographics or at times and locations that they think they will get the results they want. This can lean a polls results towards the outcome you want.


I dont think a poll that consists of .00027% of our population can really tell us how americans feel about something. Do you?

Point...!

I have no opinion about the poll, I just saw the word "math" so I focused in on this comment. There is absolutely nothing wrong fact that these numbers don't 'add up' as indicated here. There would be a serious problem if the numbers did add up to 810 and 1020 respectively.

Take a minute and think about it. Challenge your assumptions.

I'm shocked that you of all people would equate liberal math with correct math. Are you saying that liberals are correct? I don't think they are.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

lol - i cant argue....

There are aspects of it that are fantastic, but the bad stuff negates the good. Hopefully it will receive an overhaul.

i just don't like the fact that we are getting it ramrodded down our throats. we are a free country, but now we HAVE to pay for this crap too? give us some kind of choice, and i would be able to accept it a little better.

That's a major bone of contention with people. We should have the option to not participate in it if we don't want to.

poll after poll indicate that the majority in the U.S. do not feel that the health care overhaul legislation went far enough...

THE BEST VALUE IN HEALTH CARE BY FAR IS SINGLE PAYER

That is why the rest of the world and all the best health care
systems use it - and we will too - soon. All the blather and
moaning aside - it is the only reasonable thing to do long term
economically. And the faster we do it the more money we save.
Our biggest problem is the entrenched private insurance bureaucracy.

But they are going the way of the rest of the Dodo's.



So many good reasons why it should be mandatory for everyone.
The best reason is that it will provide universal coverage for
everyone at the lowest average cost and eliminate all
exclusions for pre-existing conditions and cherrypicking.

It's fair too. Although we have different illnesses and afflictions,
EVERYONE ages, EVERYONE has accidents, EVERYONE gets ill and
EVERYONE dies. That's why EVERYONE needs affordable health care.

Really? Because I live in Japan now where they have that kind of system and I had a much better plan in the US and it was cheaper too.