Poll: Worries Over Health Care Fine Print

AP Survey Finds Support for Popular Goals of Reform Slips When Trade-Offs, Costs Are Factored In

(AP)  Americans are worried about the fine print in the health care overhaul, an Associated Press poll says, and those concerns are creating new challenges for President Barack Obama as he tries to overcome doubts in Congress.

Despite a widely-shared conviction that major health care changes are needed, Democratic bills that aim to extend coverage to the uninsured and hold down medical costs get no better than a lukewarm reception in the latest results.

The poll found that 43 percent of Americans oppose the health care plans being discussed in Congress, while 41 percent are in support. An additional 15 percent remain neutral or undecided.

There has been little change in that broad public sentiment about the overhaul plan from a 40-40 split in an AP poll last month, but not everyone's opinion is at the same intensity. Opponents have stronger feelings on the issue than do supporters. Seniors remain more skeptical than younger generations.

The latest survey was conducted by Stanford University with the nonprofit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The United States is the only developed nation that does not have a comprehensive national health care plan for all its citizens, leaving about 50 million of America's roughly 300 million people uninsured. Mr. Obama, who took office in January, campaigned on a promise of offering affordable health care to all Americans.

When the AP poll questions were framed broadly, the answers seemed to indicate ample support for President Obama's goals. When required trade-offs were brought into the equation, opinions shifted - sometimes dramatically.

In one particularly striking finding, the poll indicated that public support for banning insurance practices that discriminate against those in poor health may not be as solid as it seems.

A ban on denial of coverage because of pre-existing medical problems has long been one of the most popular consumer protections in the health care debate. Some 82 percent said they favored the ban, according to a Pew Research Center poll in October.

In the AP poll, when told that such a ban would probably cause most people to pay more for their health insurance, 43 percent said they would still support doing away with pre-existing condition denials but 31 percent said they would oppose it.

Costs for those with coverage could go up because people in poor health who'd been shut out of the insurance pool would now be included, and they would get medical care they could not access before.

"I'm thinking we'd probably pay more because we would probably be paying for those that are not paying. So they got to get the money from somewhere. Basically I see our taxes going up," said Antoinette Gates, 57, of Atlanta.

The health care debate is full of such trade-offs. For example, limiting the premiums that insurance companies can charge 50-year-olds means that 20-year-olds have to pay more for coverage.

"These trade-offs really matter," says Robert Blendon, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health who follows opinion trends. "The legislation contains a number of features that polls have shown to be popular, but support for the overall legislation is less than might be expected because people are worried there are details about these bills that could raise their families' costs."

If the added costs - spread over tens of millions of people - turn out to be small, it probably won't make much difference, Blendon said. But if they're significant, President Obama could be on shaky ground in the final stretch of his drive to deliver access to health insurance to most Americans.

More than 4 in 5 Americans now have health insurance, and their perceptions about costs will be critical as President Obama tries to close the deal. Democrats in the House came together to pass a bill, but in the Senate, Democratic liberals and moderates disagree on core questions.

The poll suggests the public is becoming more attuned to the fact that when it comes to health care, details often make all the difference.

For example, asked if everyone should be required to have at least some health insurance, 67 percent agreed and 27 percent said no.

The responses flipped when people were asked about requiring everybody to carry insurance or face a federal penalty: 64 percent said they would be opposed, while 28 percent favored that.

Both the House and Senate bills would require all Americans to get health insurance, either through an employer, a government program or by buying their own coverage. Subsidies would be provided for low-income people, as well as many middle-class households.

And there would also be a stick - a penalty collected through the income tax system to enforce the coverage mandate.

"I think it's crazy. I think it infringes on our rights as a citizen, forcing us to do these things," said Eli Fuchs, 26, of Marietta, Georgia.

The poll was based on land line and cell phone interviews with 1,502 adults from Oct. 29 to Nov. 8. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The interviews were conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. Stanford University's participation was made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that conducts research on the health care system.

[retm-w]

Yes the fine print and pork that they sneak in.

[pflack]

Health Care Reform
Everybody seems so confused about National Health Care, but I fail to see what is so confusing about it. It?s at least as important and vital as Police and Fire Protection, Military Preparedness and the minimum Education we now provide. Social Security was enacted to make sure our elderly had something that would ensure they would be able to exist, if only minimally, and finally Medicare since we recognized that the cost of health care for the oldest of our population was prohibitive.

The only real problem is dishonesty of our politicians, and self interest groups. It?s easy to understand why the insurance and drug companies would want to avoid Health Care Reform at most any cost. What really needs to be addressed in order to move this Dream into Reality for the American Citizen and Corporate America is a face off with our elected officials. It?s obvious our elected officials are far more interested in re-election coffers being tended to by the drug and insurance companies. If you have any doubt, just look back when Part D was dealt with for Medicare. By the time it was all over, we found it illegal to go out of the United States to buy drugs, even if they were cheaper, and it was illegal to negotiate the cost of drugs even though every country dose so. It really is immaterial weather the politician is democrat or republican, they are compromised with self ambition and have no regard for reality, honesty, integrity much less what is best for the people they represent. Anyone who really can?t see the benefit of National Health Care for America is far more than one brick short of a load, and will be the ones that will need it the most.

[mcapek]

"If you wait until you are sick to get health care you are stupid. It is absurd to ask the health insurance companies to knowingly write a $8k policy to cover $50k of treatment." Yes, it defies logic, for politicians to demand that insurance companies cover all comers. Although it sounds great, no more preexisting conditions or limits, insurance comapnies can only do it by increasing policy costs to everyone. So if they enroll somebody with cancer or Crohn's disease or thousand other chronic conditions, they will have to come up with cash to pay for their very expensive care. Obama Healthcare is full of half-baked and illogical ideas.

[mcapek]

"CBO estimated that health care reform will cost 1 trillion dollars, but that's over a 10 year period, so that amounts to 100 billion dollars a year. The CBO also pointed out that Obama's proposed health care reforms would actually save $ 111 billion dollars a year - so Obama's health care proposals actually save money." Care to quite some government healthplans (or other plans) in the past that actually "saved money"? There are many assumptions in these estimates, and the unlimited demand for healthcare service will prove those assumptions to be wrong.

[mcapek]

Obama Healthcare - same people who promised you that the government will provide you vaccines against H1N1. That wildly optimistic plan did not quite work out. Nor will this looney healthcare plan, with its wildly optimistic and grossly underestimated costs, cost shifting to tax payers (you will be paying for those who are too poor or don't give a damn, those will keep on going to ER instead of finding their own doc, you will be paying for all the illegals who will keep going to ER where they cannot be turned away), and mediocre to poor healthcare and rationing for all.

[Sloughfoot]

"And there would also be a stick - a penalty collected through the income tax system to enforce the coverage mandate"

Fools! Just how many of the uninsured/unemployed file income tax?

Most of those uninsured are struggling to put food on the table today and live on the hope that tommorrow will be better. So you do-gooders gonna get your jollies off by imprisoning them, putting their children into gov. projects, and ensnaring the legal system in a quagmire of legislative criminals?????

And the Death Pannel issue - just go read the first few pages of the bill and decide for yourself.

[msimamaji]

As usual, the public does not get the whole truth.

True the CBO estimated that health care reform will cost 1 trillion dollars, but that's over a 10 year period, so that amounts to 100 billion dollars a year. The CBO also pointed out that Obama's proposed health care reforms would actually save $ 111 billion dollars a year - so Obama's health care proposals actually save money.

In addition, the public does not understand that the value of stock in health insurance companies will increase by 10% a year if nothing is done. The dividends will come out of the pockets of those people with health insurance.

Furthermore, the public does not understand that the politicians who oppose health care reform are getting generous campaign contributions from the health insurance industry. You can conduct your own research on this. Simply go to Google. Type in Center for Responsive Politics and then select a politician's name - Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, Max Baucus, Joe Wilson, Joe Lieberman - and you can find out who is bribing whom. All this bribery money also comes out of your pocket.

Again, the public does not know the whole truth. The media doesn't tell the whole truth and too many people in the public don't bother to investigate the truth themselves. I'd suggest that everyone blogging on this site, try my suggestion - conduct some research before you say anything.

[endurorob_5]

Why don't you take a look at Nancy Pelosi's contributors. The top contrubuting industries are as follows: Health professionals, lawyers, unions, lobbyists, entertainment.

[lakota2012]

by firstlastmanstanding:
You see, I do not recognize Speaker Pelosi nor president Obama, as my God or end all be all in any part of my life. Moreover I am in the majority.
=====================================






Methinks you're wrapped a bit too tight, and should be out teabaggin' with the rest of your far-right extremist fringers in the minority!

[lakota2012]

by firstlastmanstanding:
20 million of those 50 million who do not have insurance are illegal immigrents
==============================





Just parroting the usual daily talking points from the far-right sources certainly doesn't make it true, no matter how many times it is repeated, especially from those that are totally uneducated.

There's 50 million American citizens without health care, and this is rising on a daily basis as more and more American citizens lose their jobs and benefits such as health care, or just cannot afford the $14,000 per family price tag by the for-profit insurance industry. By simply letting the health care industries dictate price, coverage and denials of care, the system will only fail in the near future.

Even today, we see BIG PHARMA raising their prices on typical drugs by 10% in order to maximize profits to make-up for the losses they EXPECT to see in the future, much like the banks and credit card companies raising their rates ahead of next year's changes.


Drug firms raise prices in face of health reform

Even as drug makers promise to support Washington?s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation?s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.

In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation?s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.

The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/business/16drugprices.html?_r=1

[jsf14]

Did the poll ask what people with pre-existing conditions, or who develop expensive conditions should do? Should they just get worse and die?

[endurorob_5]

If you wait until you are sick to get health care you are stupid. It is absurd to ask the health insurance companies to knowingly write a $8k policy to cover $50k of treatment.

[rmonroe401]

endurorob_5,

You make a good point, so maybe we should just do away with insurance companies and get single payer. That way the insurance companies won't matter any more.

[jsf14]

What if you are born with a condition that requires medical treatment? Should you just die fast to save my tax dollars? Anyway, I've read that the bill would require everyone to get health insturance. On day one, some of those people would have pre-existing conditions. But there's also be lots of healthy 20-40 year olds covered, too. From then on, since everyone would be covered from birth, there wouldn't be any pre-existing conditions. The healthy 25 year old who'd pay more in insurance this year than he costs the company, might 20 years from now need a large payout for cancer treatment. But to say that those people who are now sick would not be covered, isn't that just saying they all have to die off as quickly as possible so our taxes won't go up? My taxes pay for a lot of things I don't approve of. If the kid down the street has a congenital heart defect and my taxes pay to fix that, hurrah!

[firstlastmanstanding]

In keeping with my line of thought on the health bill, in the above article, I read the the house came together on a bill while the Senate can not seem to agree on most things. I do not think the House came together, I think when only one republican supported the bill it speaks of partisnship on the part of the democrates. The majority speaker and the president pushed this bill through the party lines. Also, I must say, without thought to what the majority of the population wanted, or thought. To be sure, it would seem with AARP and AMA. endorsement this must be a good bill. However it seems to me that both recieved inducements to play ball with the president. The fact is AARP is no longer an advocate for seniors, they have become an insurance company through the program called Medigap which they own. When president Bush started the medicare advantage program, millions of seniors dropped Medigap for the less expensive Avantage program. President Obama has promised to reduce Advantage advantages and will force most of the millions who dropped Medigap to re-enroll in the AARP owned Medigap insurance plan. The AMA. on the other hand has been promised that the 5to6 percent rollbacks in medicare payments to Doctors that congress keeps rolling over, which has now grown to 21 percent in aggregate, will never be signed into law.I am suspect of the entegrity in which this health bill passed in the house. Let us be forthright here, it is plain out bribery on the presidents part. Another point to which I would speak is the enforcement of participation by tax penalty of up 2.5 percent of your gross income. I for one who was at one time relatively affluent, can not afford health insurance, therefore cannot afford the tax penalty, but if I resist payment of the tax penalty I can be put in jail for up to five years. I am sorry to say that if this arises, I will resist and I will not go to jail. You see, I do not recognize Speaker Pelosi nor president Obama, as my God or end all be all in any part of my life. Moreover I am in the majority.

[firstlastmanstanding]

The first point I feel that needs consideration is 20 million of those 50 million who do not have insurance are illegal immigrents, until their situation is resolved, no health bill can deal with real cost or entegrity of insureds. As with drivers license and IDs. they trade them or share them so how do you pay for, say an "appendectimy" twice on the "same" person. How is the government going to control fraud in the unregisterd population. honest citizens who pay taxes are going to be stuck with the bill while non-citizens get the free care. If 1 in 6 people now do not have coverage, it seems by blocking illegals from benifits, we would encourage them to either leave or apply for citizenship. That also reduces the percentage to 1 in 10 without coverage. Perhaps private insurance could find a catastrophic policy those folks could afford and just keep governments inefficiant hands off out health care. It has been shown time and time again malpractice insurance cost go down in state where fraudulant claims are being punished, where settlement caps have been put in place. Improvments like this is where the government should be involved, yet the house regected any resolutions of this nature. Perhaps because so many of them are lawyers themselves, it cut their craws to reduce the money they could make if they reduced lawsuits. Just some thoughts from someone who lost his job and has time to think.

[endurorob_5]

Lawyers give lots of money to dems. Thats why they do not want to include tort reform.

[rightbehind]

They are allowing the republicans and the medical industry to turn the bill into dung. I say we wait until after the 2010 elections. Hopefully we get rid of more republicans and if all goes well we get rid of some republicrats to. Then we go single payer and this time the patients write the bill.

[askagain]

Take what you can before the Republicans gain power again. If you wait, you might lose the opportunity to pass anything close to what is being proposed by the Democrats. Elections in 2010 and 2012 could shift the balance of power toward the Republicans.

[endurorob_5]

Just goes to show that when people start understanding the details and what the price may be thay tend to have a change of opinion. It is amazing what a little knowledge can do. Imagine what the November 2008 elections what have looked like if people had known the details of Obama's "change".