IWV’s Carrie Lukas joins The Steve Largent Show to discuss a recent poll on health care.
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IWV President and CEO, Heather Higgins discusses Tthe latest IWV heath care poll results.
Senior IWV Fellow Nicki Kurokawa joins the Troy Derengowski Show to discuss the latest IWV heath care poll results.
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by: Bill Pascoe
For weeks now, the Democratic congressional leadership and its allies in the White House have been trying to convince recalcitrant back-benchers (and more than a few front-benchers) that voting for the Senate version of health care reform legislation would not be the biggest act of mass suicide since followers of a radical religious messiah invented the phrase “drink the Kool-Aid” in a place called Jonestown.
To make this argument, they’ve relied on their reading of various public opinion polls’ “internals” — the responses to questions that usually aren’t considered newsworthy enough to warrant discussion in polite company.
Not for them the toplines of the public surveys; no, for them, one must go deep inside a poll to see what others cannot.
For example, White House adviser David Axelrod, appearing yesterday on ABC’s “This Week,” responded to host Jake Tapper’s question, “But according to the polls, the American people do not agree with what you think — ” thusly:
The polls are split, Jake. I mean, one of the interesting things that has happened in the last four or five weeks is that if you look at — if you average together the public polls, what you find is that the American people are split on the top line, do you support the plan? But again, when you go underneath, they support the elements of the plan. When you ask them, does the health care system need reform, three quarters of them say yes. When you ask them, do you want Congress to move forward and deal with this issue, three quarters of them say yes. So we’re not going to walk away from this issue.
It’s an artful dodge, worthy of Jack Dawkins.
But a new poll from Kellyanne Conway’s the polling company, inc./WomanTrend, commissioned by Independent Women’s Voice — the qualified 501(c)(4) arm of the Independent Women’s Forum — raises serious doubts about Axelrod’s claims.
The poll went where no other public survey has yet gone — right into the House districts of 35 targeted Democrats, 20 of whom had voted “Yea” on health care reform last November, 15 of whom voted “Nay.” Each is considered a target for suasion efforts, and it is in their districts that the battle is now being waged, one radio ad and one billboard at a time.
And what did the survey find?
When presented with five different options and asked what should Congress do next on health care reform, the single largest group (40 percent) said “Congress should start from scratch with a bipartisan proposal,” while the second-largest group (20 percent) said Congress should “stop working on healthcare legislation this year.”
Contrary to Axelrod’s declaration that the tide of momentum has shifted in favor of his favored reform effort, the survey showed otherwise. Asked “Has what what you’ve seen, read, or heard about healthcare reform over the last week to 10 days made you more supportive or less supportive of healthcare legislation being considered in Washington?” 29 percent said they were more supportive, while a whopping 55 percent said they were less supportive. Worse for Axelrod, 42 percent said they were much less supportive.
In a question aimed right at the heart of wavering Democrats, balancing their party leadership’s demands against their own priority — to wit, reelection in November — the survey asked, “Would you be more likely to vote for or vote against a candidate who opposes the current version of healthcare reform and wants to start over?” Fully 60 percent of the sample responded that they would be more likely to vote for the candidate who opposed the current legislation — and 38 percent would definitely vote for that candidate. Just 32 percent said they would vote against the candidate who opposed the current bill.
And this is a survey that was taken across 35 congressional districts controlled by Democrats.
Then survey respondents were then given three scenarios about how their Member of Congress had voted in the past, and how he might vote in the future:
The Member of Congress who voted against the legislation in November and votes against it next time has the most to gain — 58 percent said they would be more supportive, against only 34 percent less supportive.
The Member of Congress who voted for the legislation in November and votes against it next time begins to salvage his chances for reelection — 49 percent said they would be more supportive, against 40 percent who said they would be less supportive.
But the Member of Congress who voted against the bill in November, and then voted for it next time? That Member is a dead man walking — fully 61 percent of survey respondents said they would be less supportive, against a paltry 29 percent who said they would be more supportive.
The question these Members must ask themselves is simple: Am I dependent on the Democratic leadership for my job, or my constituents?
Independent Women’s Voice has given them their answer. But will they listen?
By: James Taranto
The latest effort to psychoanalyze President Obama comes from Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Washington Post. Hiatt offers “a theory about why President Obama is having a tough political time right now: He doesn’t seem all that happy being president.”
But Hiatt gets it backward. Obama isn’t having political difficulty because he’s unhappy; he’s unhappy because he’s having political difficulty. Or, as the president himself put it in an Ohio ObamaCare speech yesterday:
The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I don’t know about the politics. But I know what’s right.
He knows what’s right. And he cares so much about the American people that he is determined to do what is right, whether we want it done to us or not. Yet he keeps coming up against delays and obstructions. Where’s the fairness in that? If he’s omniscient and benevolent, doesn’t he deserve to be omnipotent too?
You can see why this is frustrating for the president. No one doubts what needs to be done for the people–no one, that is, except the people. They tell anyone who’ll listen that ObamaCare scares them to death. They even voted a Republican into the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts!
An Independent Women’s Voice poll of voters in 35 “key swing districts,” all represented by Democrats, finds that 60% think Congress should scrap ObamaCare and either start over or give up entirely. A plurality say they’d be more likely to support their congressman if he voted for ObamaCare in November and against it now.
Obama knows what’s right, and he keeps telling us, but we refuse to get the message. As a result, Jim Clyburn, the House majority whip, tells McClatchy Newspapers he’s not sure ObamaCare will come to the floor before Easter. That suggests that he and other Democratic leaders are having trouble rounding up the 216 votes they need to pass the legislation. You can see why they would be, if they listen to their poor deluded constituents.
That’s why President Obama is unhappy. The American people voted for change. Dammit, why won’t we change?
Bushism of the Day–I
“Well, a lot of those folks, your employer it’s estimated would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent [sic], which means they could give you a raise.”–President Obama in Strongville Ohio, March 15, as quoted on the White House Web site
Bushism of the Day–II
“And she upped her deductible last year to the minimum [sic], the highest possible deductible.”–President Obama, ibid.
Two Papers in One!
So Much for the Wealth of Nations
“Adam Smith Unswayed by Chamber Ad Blitz on Health Bill”–headline, Seattle Times, March 15
Accountability Journalism
The Associated Press’s Jennifer Loven hasn’t lost that Loven feeling:
Just back from a recent day trip to Georgia, President Barack Obama walked into the Oval Office and told his senior staff to get a grip.
“We all rise and fall together,” he declared that afternoon, as Washington neared fever pitch over tensions on his team. Keep your eyes on the prize, Obama directed, not on the daily ups and downs.
It was classic Obama, again summoning one [of] his tenets: the Long View.
It’s a high-minded notion that elected leaders love to invoke, both privately and publicly. It makes politicians seem above the dirtiest aspects of campaigning and governing.
They rarely adhere to it. With all of the House and a third of the Senate going before the voters every two years, and a media environment that moves by the minute, the long view can get pretty short. Scoring a point – now – can itself feel like a do-or-die achievement in the long slog to pass prized legislation or survive re-election.
But for Obama, it’s been a crucial prescription he reaches for when times get tough . . .
You thought our lead item above was over the top? At least we were being sarcastic!
Tomorrow’s Forecast: Weather, With a 50% Chance of Climate
Saturday night found us braving rough weather in New York’s Meatpacking District. First the wind ripped our umbrella into pieces, then we got drenched in rain. While waiting to check our coat at the trendy night spot that was our destination, we looked out the door and saw a downpour so intense that it would have been described as biblical had it continued for another 40 days, 39 nights and change.
No wonder the weather was so bad! According to Al Gore, it wasn’t just weather, it was climate. As the Business and Media Institute reports:
Gore, the self-anointed climate change alarmist-in-chief, told supporters on a March 15 conference call that severe weather in certain regions of the country could be attributed to carbon in the atmosphere–including the recent rash of rainy weather.
“The odds have shifted toward much larger downpours,” Gore said. “And we have seen that happen in the Northeast, we’ve seen it happen in the Northwest–in both of those regions are among those that scientists have predicted for a long time would begin to experience much larger downpours.”
But wait. That seems inconsistent with this month-old report from the Hill:
A top Obama administration scientist on Monday struck back at climate skeptics who claim that record snowstorms this winter have undercut evidence of global warming.
“It is important that people recognize that weather is not the same thing as climate,” said Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
So weather isn’t the same thing as climate, except when it is. You can “prove” anything with such heads-I-win-tails-you-lose logic. A decade ago, Gore almost managed to use it to become president.
On a related note, consider this report from London’s Guardian:
When Al Gore was caught running up huge energy bills at home at the same time as lecturing on the need to save electricity, it turns out that he was only reverting to “green” type.
According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the “licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour”, otherwise known as “moral balancing” or “compensatory ethics”.
Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the “halo of green consumerism” are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. “Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours,” they write.
The Guardian’s headline is “How Going Green May Make You Mean.” We’re inclined to think the chain of causation runs the other way–that people who are jerks to begin with gravitate toward verdant sanctimony.
Does Not Compute
The Federal Communications Commission today unveils “its much-awaited ‘broadband plan,’ which, among other things, will explain how the government plans to get nine out of 10 Americans online by 2020,” CNN reports:
That’s no easy task, considering less than two-thirds of people in the country have high-speed Internet access at home today, according to a 5,005-person survey published by the FCC in February.
Considering that the number of households with broadband was zero a little over a decade ago, it’s hard to see why we need a “national plan” to go from 67% to 90% in the next 10 years. CNN builds its story around what is supposed to be a tear-jerking human-interest story:
Like a photographer without a camera, or a mechanic who doesn’t own a car, Kelli Fields is a webmaster without high-speed Internet access.
By day, the 42-year-old uses a broadband connection at work to update a university’s Web site, which she built and codes from scratch.
But when she goes home at night, the rural Oklahoman struggles with a dial-up Internet connection so slow, she does chores to pass the time while Web sites load.
When we were young, we hiked five miles through the driving snow in our bare feet to use a 300-baud modem. Well, OK, we made that up, except the part about the 300-baud modem.
If you bother to read all the way through the story, though, you find that the reason Fields doesn’t have high-speed Internet is she doesn’t want to pay for it:
Fields is considering scraping together the money to get satellite Internet at her house. But she doesn’t want to give up services like TV to free up money for an expensive Internet connection.
So if the FCC wants to make broadband more widely available, maybe it should try making television less available.
By: Carrie Budoff Brown
With a 2,000-plus page bill, roughly a week to pass it and countless wavering House members, the political degree of difficulty of passing health reform is as high as it can be for Democrats.
They’re optimistic they’ll get to 216 votes in the House. They’re not there yet. And the vote could go either way.
The road from here to there will turn on a multitude of issues, private conversations and decision points, large and small.
Here are five ways health reform survives — and five ways it could falter inches from the finish line.
It lives:
1. Obama’s presidency depends on passage of the bill, so he has every incentive to cajole, threaten and flatter his way to passage.
He has rejected state-specific deals in the bill, but that doesn’t mean President Barack Obama doesn’t have some goodies of his own to dole out — special attention from Cabinet secretaries, visits from high-level officials and even some of his own personal campaign muscle to House members who matter.
When Obama rolled up his sleeves the last time in January, Democrats walked out of the White House with a deal to roll back the excise tax on Cadillac insurance plans — so presidents can be pretty persuasive. And if he fails on health care reform, the next three years look pretty bleak for him.
The danger to Obama, of course, is that anything that smacks of Clinton-style overnights in the Lincoln Bedroom could look unseemly. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hammered this point Monday on the chamber floor, saying, “Unfortunately, in its desperation to force this bill through, the White House is reverting to the anything-goes approach. And the results are predictable: Americans won’t like this bill any more than they liked the last one.”
2. Pelosi, too, has every incentive to pull out all the stops — not only to preserve the Democratic House majority but also to protect her legacy and her longevity in the job.
Depending on the outcome, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could be the most effective House speaker in decades or the one that let health care slip away.
In the aftermath of the Massachusetts Senate defeat, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sounding tepid on reform and the White House talking up a scaled-back bill, the speaker was dogged in her insistence that Democrats pass a comprehensive measure.
This raises the stakes for Pelosi, who will need to do everything in her power to close the deal with members. There’s honey, including an appeal to the loyalty of a caucus that respects her. And there’s vinegar, including threatening to deny Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee funds to those who will need that money to save them in tough races.
3. Democrats already own the bill — so they might as well reap the benefits that come with passage.
This has been the top argument from the White House and congressional leaders to wavering Democrats. Top administration aides concluded long ago that Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994 not because they pushed for health care reform but because they failed to deliver.
So whether they like it or not, Democrats are all in. Polls show people want Washington to govern. Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern pointed to the poll released Monday by his union to argue that Democrats should act on health care. “They’re in a ridiculous position to sustain, which is trying to explain why nothing got done when they’re in charge,” Stern told POLITICO.
4. The Stupak coalition falls apart.
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) has said at least a dozen Democrats would vote against the Senate bill unless it’s amended to include the House language barring federal funding of abortion. And it won’t be. So if Stupak is right, that’s more than enough votes to tank reform.
But Democratic leaders don’t buy it, and they’re calling Stupak’s bluff. They figure Stupak can claim closer to a half-dozen committed “no” votes on the abortion issue — and Pelosi and company figure they can make up six or so votes out of the 39 Democrats who voted no the first time.
5. It seems inevitable (even though it may be anything but).
For much of the past year, Democrats benefited from this belief that health care reform would happen. That perception faded after the Massachusetts defeat. But the momentum is back, at least for now — and momentum is real, in sports and in politics.
The White House has tried to build the illusion that Obama’s health care reform plan will be the law of the land by next week, even though top aides acknowledge privately that chances of that are maybe 55 percent. Plus, the White House and congressional leaders will argue to members: Do you want to be part of a small clutch of Democrats who killed the most sweeping piece of progressive legislation in generations?
It dies:
1. Endangered Democrats don’t really care about Pelosi’s or Obama’s legacy.
The ugly truth is this: Given the choice between saving Obama and Pelosi — or saving their own hides — it’s not a hard choice for some House members.
They don’t have the luxury of worrying about what the president will run on in 2012 if health care reform fails or whether his first term would be hobbled by the bill’s defeat. They care about Nov. 2, 2010.
And as it looks right now, voters don’t like what Congress is doing with health care reform, and the first person to take out that anger on will be the member of Congress who runs for reelection in less than eight months.
2. Undecided Democrats decide the bill is just too toxic.
Sure, the Senate bill goes further than the House bill to contain health costs. Yes, it drops the public option that gave the Republicans their “government takeover of health care” attack line.
But even days before a potential history-making vote, there are a lot of unknowns about the bill. Much of the cost savings depend upon punting budget-cutting moves to future Congresses — who are no less likely to take a hard vote than this one. Republicans can rightly say the bill raises taxes (on people making more than $250,000). There are cuts to Medicare. Some people might have to switch insurance. And the major reforms don’t kick in for a number of years.
3. The Stupak coalition holds firm.
Maybe Stupak is right. Maybe he does have 12 committed “no” votes without big changes to the abortion language, and that’s bad news indeed for Pelosi.
Pelosi has abandoned negotiations with lawmakers who want tighter language on federal funding of abortions. But if she repeatedly comes up short this week on votes, she could be forced back to the table with them, and reopening talks on abortion could scramble the decks.
4. 2,000-plus pages, hundreds of reasons to say “no.”
The sprawling bill gives Democrats who are looking for an excuse to vote “no” plenty of pages to find one.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) has threatened to vote against it because it prohibits illegal immigrants from using their own money to purchase insurance in the exchange. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) won’t support the bill because it isn’t liberal enough. Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.), a “yes” vote in October, could turn against the measure now that Democrats have attached a student-lending overhaul to the bill that could cost jobs at a Sallie Mae processing center in his district. Who hangs tough, and who folds?
5. The polling in swing districts is ominous for Democrats, particularly those who come from districts that backed Republican John McCain in 2008.
The White House has pushed back hard in recent days on the notion that Democrats will suffer dire consequences if the bill passes, with Obama’s lead pollster, Joel Benenson, refuting the charge in a Washington Post op-ed. But a new set of numbers released Monday by Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway will sow fresh seeds of doubt. Conway surveyed 1,200 votes in 35 swing districts, in which 15 members voted no and 20 voted yes.
“Should members from these districts and those like them be concerned? Yes,” Conway wrote in the Wall Street Journal with Heather Higgins, president of Independent Women’s Voices. “Walking the Democratic line now means walking the plank. Sixty percent of the voters surveyed will vote for a candidate who opposes the current legislation and wants to start over.”
POLITICO
By: Douglas E. Schoen
A Washington Post piece by Joel Benenson, President Obama’s “lead” pollster, today challenges the argument and the data offered by myself and Pat Caddell in a piece published Sunday in the same newspaper about health care reform and raises the question: Who is right?
Benenson asserted that Caddell and I were “wrong” to suggest that the health care reform bill was unpopular, and, in fact, public opinion polls had shown an upturn in support for the legislation recently.
With the release today of a survey of 1,200 likely voters conducted in the 35 most marginal Congressional districts last week, we have a clear answer to the question that our piece and Benenson’s piece both raise. This poll, conducted between Mar. 8-10, shows that the legislation is particularly unpopular in marginal districts — 29 percent say that they would like the current legislation passed, and 69 percent oppose it.
Moreover, when asked in the survey, conducted for the Independent Women’s Voice, if what they have heard since bipartisan health care summit has made them more or less supportive of the health care bill, 55 percent say what they have heard has made them less supportive, and 29 percent that it makes them more supportive.
Unambiguously, in the swing districts the legislation is not popular. Further, it is probably even more unpopular in these districts than it is nationally.
The Independent Women’s Voice research was equally clear on the political impact of the legislation. Forty-nine percent of voters say that they would be more likely to support their member of Congress if he flipped from supporting the legislation previously to opposing it now, while 40 percent say that they would be less supportive if their representative chose such a course.
For those Congressmen who end up casting a vote twice against the measure, 58 percent say that they will be more supportive of his reelection if he follows this path.
Looking at the issue more generally, 60 percent say that they are more likely to vote for a candidate who opposes this bill and wants to start over, while just 32 percent are more likely to vote against a candidate who takes this position. This suggests clearly that a “yes” vote is problematic.
A detailed look at the research shows that representatives who change their vote from opposing it last November to supporting it now will probably be committing political hara-kiri. The research shows that 61 percent of these voters will be less likely to support a candidate who changes his vote to get the bill passed in the 11th hour.
Thus, this data shows that voting for this health care bill may dramatically weaken Democratic members’ reelection chances and could potentially endanger Democratic control of the House.
An examination of the poll’s demographics shows why this is a problem. These marginal districts are far more conservative than the country as a whole. Overall, 48 percent of the sample is conservative, while only 16 percent is liberal and 30 percent is moderate. Forty percent of the voters interviewed are Republican, 32 percent Democrat and 23 percent are Independent. The vast majority, 90 percent, have health insurance that they are, in large part, satisfied with.
Thus, the new data suggests that a vote for this measure this week is could be toxic.
At the same time, the polling shows the way for a revised set of health care proposals to be put forward, should this fail. More than 60 percent of the voters surveyed support allowing people to buy health insurance on their own with the same tax benefits as people who get insurance at work; allowing small businesses to find health insurance buy-in pools, and allowing interstate purchase of insurance.
None of this is surprising. The data has been clear since at least the summer about how the American people feel about health insurance and their fears about the scope of government and the cost of this initiative. They would like greater focus on cost than any other goal.
But what is striking about this polling is how definitive it is in swing districts, and how perilous the Democrats’ position will be if they ignore the handwriting on the wall.
Douglas E. Schoen is a political strategist and author of” The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grass Roots to the White House.”
by: Heather Higgins, President and CEO, Independent Women’s Voice, and KellyAnne E Conaway, President, The Polling Company
Sobering poll news for 35 key House members
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she plans to bring health-care reform to a vote this week. Democratic leaders cite national polls that show support for individual provisions of the bill as a reason to pass this reform. Yet vulnerable politicians should be warned: Responses to questions about individual benefits, particularly when removed from a cost context, are different from those on the whole bill.
Voters in key congressional districts are clear in their opposition to what they have seen, read and heard on health-care reform. That’s one of the findings of a survey that will be released today by the Polling Company on behalf of Independent Women’s Voice. The survey consisted of 1,200 registered voters in 35 districts represented by members who could determine the outcome of the health-care debate. Twenty of those members voted for the House bill in November but now may be reconsidering. Fifteen voted against the bill but are under tremendous pressure to change their vote.
The survey shows astonishing intensity and sharp opposition to reform, far more than national polls reflect. For 82% of those surveyed, the heath-care bill is either the top or one of the top three issues for deciding whom to support for Congress next November. (That number goes to 88% among independent women.) Sixty percent want Congress to start from scratch on a bipartisan health-care reform proposal or stop working on it this year. Majorities say the legislation will make them and their loved ones (53%), the economy (54%) and the U.S. health-care system (55%) worse off—quite the trifecta.
Seven in 10 would vote against a House member who votes for the Senate health-care bill with its special interest provisions. That includes 45% of self-identified Democrats, 72% of independents and 88% of Republicans. Three in four disagree that the federal government should mandate that everyone buy a government-approved insurance plan (64% strongly so), and 81% say any reform should focus first on reducing costs. Three quarters agree that Americans have the right to choose not to participate in any health-care system or plan without a penalty or fine.
That translates into specific concerns with the Senate legislation—and none of these objections would be addressed by the proposed fixes. Over 70%—indeed in several districts over 80%—of respondents, across party lines, said that the following information made them less supportive: the bill mandates that individuals purchase insurance or face penalties; it cuts Medicare Advantage; it will force potentially millions to lose existing coverage; it will cost an estimated $2.3 trillion over its first 10 years; and it will grant unprecedented new powers to the Health and Human Services secretary.
Should members from these districts and those like them be concerned? Yes. Walking the Democratic line now means walking the plank. Sixty percent of the voters surveyed will vote for a candidate who opposes the current legislation and wants to start over.
What about passing the Senate bill and then fixing problems via reconciliation, a process that could allow Congress to pass a second health-care bill with a simple Senate majority? Sixty-three percent (50% strongly) think reconciliation is at best a political promise and their congressman shouldn’t vote for the Senate bill if he doesn’t agree with it as written.
But the survey does provide a little good news for wavering Democrats. A congressman can buy himself a little grace if he had previously voted for health-care reform but now votes against it. Forty-nine percent of voters will feel more supportive of that member if he does so, 40% less supportive. More dramatically, 58% of voters say they will be more supportive of their congressman’s re-election if he votes against the bill a second time. However, for those members who voted against it in November and vote yes this time, 61% of voters say they will be less likely to support their re-election.
Over a third of respondents say they will actively work against a candidate who votes the wrong way or for the candidate who votes the right way. Perhaps that’s because dramatic pluralities of both sexes—young people, seniors and independents, regardless of whether John McCain or Barack Obama carried the district in 2008—say that if the legislation doesn’t pass they will be relieved.
These are the constituents of the members whose votes will matter most this week. Perhaps, if this republic is still the people’s, those members should heed those they claim to represent.
Ms. Higgins runs Independent Women’s Voice. Ms. Conway is president and CEO of the Polling Company, inc./WomanTrend. Poll results will be available after 11 a.m. Monday at www.iwvoice.org.
IWV’s Julie Gunlock joins The Andy Caldwell Show to discuss a recent poll on health care.
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Washington, D.C. – The Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) and the polling company™/ WomanTrend release their latest poll today – a survey of voters’ attitudes in 35 swing congressional districts regarding the health care plan being debated in Washington, D.C. The full poll is available here.
Congressional districts surveyed include: AR-01, AR-04, AZ-08, CA-18, CO-03, CO-04, IL-14, IN-08, IN-09, KY-06, MI-07, NC-07, NC-11, ND-At Large, NJ-03, NM-02, NV-03, NY-24, NY-20, OH-01, OH-06, OH-15, OH-16, OH-18, PA-03, PA-04, PA-08, PA-10, TN-06, TX-17, VA-02, VA-05, VA-09, WA-03, WI-08.
National polls don’t capture the demographics or sentiment of these districts. Respondents from these districts self-identify as 40% Republican v. 32% Democrat, 90% have insurance, 71% are married, and 48% self-identify as conservative. They have paid attention to the heath care debate (73% saw at least some of the summit) – and 55% say that what they’ve seen and heard lately have left them less supportive of the legislation, while 60% say “start over with a bipartisan plan” or “stop working on health care altogether.”
Indeed, they massively reject the individual aspects of health care reform. Many national polls have only asked about BENEFITS PROVIDED BY THE PLAN without asking about the costs and consequences they entail. That’s like asking how many kids want ice cream at recess, without mentioning that their allowance for the year will be taken in exchange and the principal gets to choose the flavor. This poll put the individual aspects in context.
Most important, critical masses of voters say they will actually support their Member of Congress this November if that Member opposes the bill. Voters will hold Members accountable for process as well as content: 63% don’t think a Member should vote for a reconciliation package unless they mean for the Senate bill, as is, to become law.
Nearly seven in ten voters also feel that health care is distracting Congress from bigger priorities, like jobs.
Independent Women’s Voice is a 501(c) (4) nonpartisan, nonprofit organization for women, men and families. IWV is dedicated to promoting limited government, free markets, and personal responsibility.
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