If you are interested in what people actually think about the health reform bill, you really should read all of the responses. Not only are they great data points, but they have a level of honesty almost entirely lacking in the national media discourse on the bill. You can read them all here.
While reading through the reasons people gave for opposing the bill, several things stuck out:
Little of the opposition comes from the left. Of the 508 responses for people who opposed the bill, only 20 gave reasons that strongly suggested left-wing opposition. 75 others gave either entirely vague responses that might have been left-wing opposition, or focused entirely on the mandate without offering up any obvious indicators of right-wing opposition. 433 gave responses that were very unlikely to be based on left-wing opposition. I have sorted all of the responses here, so you can judge my sorting for yourself (note: the file shows 436 responses that unlikely to be left-wing, but there are three doubles I can't identify).
Even in the highly unlikely scenario where all 75 of the unclear responses were based on left-wing opposition, that still means that only 19% of the people who oppose health reform do so from the left. In the more likely scenario where the unclear results are split, or skewed significantly to the right, then only between 4-11% of the country opposes the bill from the left. Those numbers would represent 5% of the population or under.
This data is superior to vaguer questions such as "does the bill go far enough," which can have many conflicting meanings to the general population.
People don't care about process. Only about 3% of those who opposed the bill focused on process issues like not being bipartisan, moving too quickly, or the use of budget reconciliation. Most of the opposition was substantive-opposed to the methodology) or ideological (opposed to the purpose).
A such, it seems that Democrats should do well when Republicans are complaining about process. The main arguments that seem to be working for Republicans are complaints about the cost, socialized medicine, government takeover, and that you shouldn't have to pay for other people's insurance. When Republicans are not hitting on those points, they are ignoring the most successful arguments against the bill.
Abortion a minimal factor. Even though Stupak bloc seems to represent the biggest obstavle to passing the bill, only 2-3% of those who opposed the bill mentioned "funding abortions" as their primary reason. Stupak and his allies are catering to a very narrow constieuncy.
Good stuff. I wish more polling outfits would ask open-ended questions like these, and release all of the responses online. It provides much more clarity into what the country is actually thinking than just the topline poll numbers themselves.
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