NEW POLL: Biden's health care proposal more popular than Medicare for All

[Gothmog]

Link to tweet

A new poll finds that more voters favor an optional government-run health insurance plan, as former Vice President Joe Biden advocates, than full-scale "Medicare for All" that eliminates private health insurance, as advocated by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

The poll could give credence to Biden's argument against his main two rivals in the Democratic White House race, Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), that an optional plan is more popular in a general election than the full-scale Medicare for All that Sanders and Warren advocate.

The USC/Los Angeles Times poll finds that 48 percent of eligible voters surveyed support giving everyone the option of a government-run health insurance plan, compared to just 14 percent who oppose it. Thirty-eight percent had not heard enough to have an opinion.

The full-scale Medicare for All, which eliminates private health insurance, polls somewhat worse. That proposal gets 39 percent support to 34 percent opposition.

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[TreasonousBastard]

1. Of course it does. There's always the chorus of "Government will screw it up" and...

the larger group who are suspicious of being forced to give up what they have for something new and untested.

[JoeOtterbein]

2. I want Universal Healthcare. Bill Clinton promised it decades ago. Why should we settle for...

...second best if we win in 2020?

Why?

[Gothmog]

3. Medicare for All polls very poorly

Link to tweet

-- FOR EXAMPLE: Take ‘MEDICARE FOR ALL.’ When asked about supporting Medicare for All, and hearing it described as “guaranteed health care coverage regardless of … income, and every American’s health insurance would come from a single government-run plan,” 41% favor it, 55% oppose and 4% are unsure. When Republicans start describing it as causing “doctor shortages, longer wait times for urgent care and delays in access to the latest drugs for cancer and other serious diseases,” the numbers move to 34% favor and 60% oppose.

[KPN]

8. Of course MOA comes up short when described the way Rs describe it. No surprise there.

[Beartracks]

11. And the media will parrot the Republican description.

In the MSM, Dems will be required to prove how such a plan does NOT produce the results predicted by Republicans, rather than the other way around. I'm not so sure 2020 is the year to fight that kind of unfair uphill battle.

But 2022...?

======

[Cha]

4. Good to know Biden's health care proposal is

still going strong.. in spite of those who are trying to tear it down.

The USC/Los Angeles Times poll finds that 48 percent of eligible voters surveyed support giving everyone the option of a government-run health insurance plan, compared to just 14 percent who oppose it. Thirty-eight percent had not heard enough to have an opinion.

The full-scale Medicare for All, which eliminates private health insurance, polls somewhat worse. That proposal gets 39 percent support to 34 percent opposition

Thanks, Gothmog!

[Thekaspervote]

29. This!

[Cha]

34. And, a Kick!

Thank you, kasper!

[crazytown]

5. I've never found it more difficult to find out what the poll questions actually said,

and in what order they were asked. I gave up after a few minutes.

[TwilightZone]

18. There's a link to it in the original LA Times article.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b8wZOfldlNWoaN4ajvl-c-g_Vvao-t5C/view

Linked here: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-09-11/usc-latimes-poll-democrats-ideology-2020-presidential-race

[AllyCat]

6. Truly, most Americans seem to prefer paying outrageous insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, etc

to scummy insurance companies that run racketeering operations. We just love to be beat up I guess. We will continue to have the crappiest health care in the modern world at the most exorbitant rates.

Gluttons for punishment I guess.

[BlueMississippi]

7. Of course it is -- I am not surprised. k&r

[KPN]

9. It's a good way to get a very limited public option, one that is designed to fail from the get go

and show once and for all government run health care insurance just won't work. Start with a limited proposal in the first place. That worked real well the last time around didn't it?

[yaesu]

10. Wasn't it Patrick Henry who said

Give me expensive corporate run healthcare or give me death?

[Cha]

12. American voters like Biden's health plan

the best.. and insulting it isn't working.

[Thekaspervote]

30. But why listen to the voters or what the polls say?? Let's just charge forward with a plan that

Won’t become law...yeah let’s just forget that part!!

[Eric J in MN]

13. Yeah, it sounds better to say

...wouldn’t you like another option?

The problem with the public option approach is that if the goal is to also maintain private plans then the public plan can’t be very good.

Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill would make doctor visits and hospital stays free.

If a public option did that then almost everyone would choose it and we’d have Single Payer. Opponents of Single Payer won’t want the public option to be that good.

[Cha]

14. Biden's health care proposal more popular than Medicare for All

[wyldwolf]

15. Meaningful and effective incremental change

Honestly, I WANT medicare for all. But, IMO, the dramatic change in health care procedures for most people and the political reality of such a change makes it a liability for most. Obamacare was a move to the left. Biden's plan is a move a little further left.

[Cha]

16. Well said, wyldwolf..

Good to see you again

[Gothmog]

19. I have no problem with incremental changes

[Thekaspervote]

31. Agree!! We have to start somewhere. Jumping off the cliff with M4A is a sure recipe for failure

[peggysue2]

32. The main thing is all our candidates support universal healthcare

The question is how do we get there. Incrementally, as we bring more and more citizens into the public option or with a single leap into Medicare4All, a program that promises everything but is hazy on the cost to the average voter? Bernie Sanders is at least willing to admit that M4A means a tax hike on the middle class. He says this will even out with the savings in health costs. But Warren and Harris have been less forthcoming on the tax liability and none of the M4A supporters have been upfront with the level of taxation to provide not merely the current level of Medicare but well beyond current coverage.

There's a reason for that. Because most Americans have an innate, visceral hatred of taxes, period. It would be a very hard lift to convince the majority of Americans with a simple 'trust me on this' approach.

I go back to Green Mountain Care, the attempt in Vermont to institute Medicare for All statewide. The program failed to get off the ground, not for the lack of trying or the will to get it done. Shumlin and his colleagues failed because they could not get the numbers to work. The level of tax was too onerous for business and residents alike without lowering the level of care below what people already had. They tried mightily but they simply could not get the math to work. The reason for that Shumlin concluded was the exploding prices in healthcare services and pharmaceutical costs. Without addressing those two aspects first, the program was doomed.

The public option gives us the opportunity to address those costs head-on, bring them under control and also ease people into the tax increase that any M4A plan would entail.

Incrementalism is not a dirty word. The public option means being practical, pragmatic and getting as many people as possible the services they need now while working on the ultimate goal of universal coverage.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

17. Is "Medicare for All" the same as Single-payer, universal health care?

Medicare is generally ok, but has some holes. It covers only 80% of Dr bills, Part D doesn't negotiate for better drug prices, Hearing/Vision/Dental is a big zero. I hope we can do better.

Single-payer would be best, but getting it past a Repub filibuster in the Senate would be tough, plus the insurance companies will "buy" enough Dems to sink it.

I think we have to get there incrementally, and a gov't insurance option is a good start.

[Cha]

20. KICK!

[Gothmog]

21. Yeah for Joe

Link to tweet

[oasis]

25. Great line. Joe maintained his dignity throughout the debate. He was

quite respectful to his rivals.

[Cha]

22. KICK!

[betsuni]

23. K&R

[Hortensis]

24. :) Feels like half that little 14% who oppose the ACA are here.

Good, btw, for that very un-reactionary 38% who declined to state an opinion because they hadn't been paying attention so far. So refreshing.

I feel pretty secure, though, in assuming most of those will choose keeping and expanding Obamacare to what it was always meant to be, rather than trashing it and starting over from scratch. After all, aside from stripping their rights to have any other choice and taking several years to fully implement, from the patient's experience the most noticeable difference would be calling the program MfA (Sanderscare?), instead of Obamacare.

Btw, I seriously suspect Sanders must secretly think very poorly of both since Obamacare and MfA, and of course Medicare, are all capitalism/for-profit medicine based. That's what he's always loudly despised and always called, passionately, to change. Heck, most people despise for-profit motives in medicine. So, even though he'd have finally managed to erase Obamacare and of course in the process re-create America's biggest issue as "his" to campaign on, I don't see how it could be otherwise.

[Scurrilous]

26. K&R

[Kurt V.]

27. mfa needs some fine tuning. and explained better. Insurance should be supplemental

[stonecutter357]

28. K&R

[kcr]

33. Americans love their huge deductibles and giant co-pays!

Polls don't lie.

[Gothmog]

35. Warren and Sanders say Americans don't like their health insurance. Polls don't back that up.

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