Haves vs. Have Nots
| Thu Feb. 26, 2009 8:24 AM PST
Ezra Klein talks about the healthcare principles outlined in Obama's budget:The salient fact about health insurance in the United States is not that 15 percent don't have it. It's that 85 percent do....That's why the first three health care principles in Obama's budget speak to the concerns of the insured: Choice, affordability, security. But In his latest column at the Kaiser Family Foundation, Drew Altman suggests a metric we should we be watching to see if they're successful. Polls, he notes, generally ask whether you think health reform will make your family better off. Kaiser recently ran one such survey and the results were moderately encouraging.
At a guess, it's the group in the center that's critical. Supporters provide the shock troops and the opposition provides, um, the opposition. But that big middle group that mostly thinks national healthcare is probably good for the country but isn't sure if it's good for them? They're the ones most easily swayed by conservative scare talk. Altman notes that these poll numbers are better than the ones Bill Clinton enjoyed in 1993, which is good, but 43% is still a huge number. That's the battleground.
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Comments
Main problem
Submitted by rhinoman (not verified) on Thu Feb. 26, 2009 10:16 AM PST.
The "middle" is indeed the biggest stumbling block for universal health care. These are people who, as Kevin puts it perfectly:
"thinks national healthcare is probably good for the country but isn't sure if it's good for them?"
The problem is that their interactions with government tend to be negative: IRS, school boards, town and state bureaucracies, etc.. I still remember the shock when EZPass was started in the NYC area - people were surprised that it actually worked. The expectation was for the classic fumbling cluster f_ck.
You are going to have a very, very hard time convincing these people to allow the federal government to take over their health care. They don't trust it.
It wouldn't make much diference?
Submitted by BigTom (not verified) on Thu Feb. 26, 2009 11:17 AM PST.
I wonder if the poll is discriminating between two meanings of "It wouldn't make difference"? I woulda checked that one off, for both questions, not because I think real reform wouldn't be a great thing, but because I don't expect much more than cosmetic reform. The reason, large entrenched interests. Health care is, according to the latest results I saw, something like 17% of the economy. Any proper reform would cut that number down substantially perhaps in half, and that would endanger the jobs of millions (like all those whose jobs are basically about fighting over who pays). These people are gonna get scared and push back very hard.
I read this differently
Submitted by tambourine man (not verified) on Thu Feb. 26, 2009 12:38 PM PST.
I look at this a little more positively, because I see myself in that middle section. I already have decent health care coverage and whatever we end up with is not likely to be an improvement for me, but is also not likely to be much worse. In spite of that, I think health care reform would be good for the country because I know I'm not the only person in the country. I support health care reform because it's the right thing to do, not because it will make my health care coverage better.
I hope that's the attitude of a number of those middle people.
The middle is unaware of what health insurance actually costs
Submitted by Emily (not verified) on Fri Feb. 27, 2009 6:08 PM PST.
I think the discrepancy of the middle group is due to the fact that most people with employer provided health insurance do not know what the cost of their health insurance actually is until they have to buy it on the open market, or pay for COBRA. They are sympathetic to those they may know or read about who are faced with these costs, but for them, it is just part of their compensation. I think a first step to a national conversation on health care is to make people aware of what it really costs - the employer share of health premiums should be printed on your pay stub next to the employee share, and reported on W-2s. This would also make people more aware of what their service to their employer is actually worth, and better able to consider options should a "public opt in" plan be offered.
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