Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Public Option: Desirable, Really?

Really, no.

RCP does a good job of presenting the numbers that Folkie touts this morning.

Then he does a good job of dismantling them.

Quoting Kellyanne Conway:

Asking an under-informed public in a poll about "public option" is incomplete. It calls for a response to feel-good phraseology rather than a probing of underlying ideology. "Public option" in health care is not so different from "campaign finance reform," "Violence Against Women's Act," "revenue enhancements" or for that matter, "world peace' and "no rain this Saturday."

Check out the response to a less-pixie-dust question from Gallup in the body of the article.

Like ABC News/WaPo, Gallup uses the Democratic buzzword "compete." However, Gallup also uses a Republican buzzword: "government-run." This is opposed to the weaker formulation - "government administered" - offered by CBS News/New York Times and CNN. With this more balanced choice of words, Gallup finds a roughly even split [50 Yes, 46 No]

And there's the Rasmussen phraseology:

Suppose that the creation of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option encouraged companies to drop private health insurance coverage for their workers. Workers would then be covered by the government option. Would you favor or oppose the creation of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option if it encouraged companies to drop private health insurance coverage for their workers?

Which drew a "NO" of near 60%.

2 comments:

Jay Bullock said...

The problem with your question is that it bears no relation to the actual Democratic proposals. For example:
companies [] drop private health insurance coverage for their workers. Workers would then be covered by the government option.

If such a thing happened--that companies would decide to drop coverage, a stretch in the first place--people would not automatically be enrolled in the public (or government, he adds, rolling his eyes) plan. They would still have their choice of any plan in the exchange, which are mostly still private.

So, there.

Dad29 said...

rolling his eyes

You mean "spreading pixiedust".

Of COURSE companies will drop their health insurance plans, given that they will save zillions by doing so. Roll Eyes One.

And the "private insurers" competing against tax-supported Gummint plan? They'll last forever, I'm sure Roll Eyes Two.