The data is from a May, 2007, WSJ/Harris Interactive Poll on health care.
Polling is a snapshot of how people respond to simplistic questions, but there are a couple of key notes here. One, the public is extremely leery of using taxes to pay for universalized systems of health care insurance. Two, the public is not leery government involvement in the form of subsidies and public health plans to provide insurance for those who don't have it. Three, the public is not sold on breaking the employer-health care link. |
All of this makes sense. 96% of voters are insured, since the uninsured are younger, less affluent, and less likely to vote. That means a 'universal' system is inherently less appealing for political decision-makers and voters; as the voting universe shifts to a younger and less insured population, this will change, but we're not there yet.
If 96% of voters are insured, why would voters put their own coverage at risk in return for a tax hike? At the same time, voters are not averse to government helping those who aren't insured as long and as long as the tax word isn't used.
This is the logic behind the Edwards/Clinton people, who think that by avoiding the tax word and substituting 'mandate' in there, they can get around the stark opposition to universal health care in the single-payer mode. They believe that if you create a public option that competes with the private option, and then mandate that those who are not insured buy into it or into a private option, it will naturally gravitate to a single-payer system. The public option, which will essentially become the single-payer entity, is supported by the 76% of the public who want people with no access to insurance to get some from the government.
Obama is attacking part of this logic, and Paul Krugman echos Ezra Klein's attacks.
Third, and most troubling, Mr. Obama accuses his rivals of not explaining how they would enforce mandates, and suggests that the mandate would require some kind of nasty, punitive enforcement: "Their essential argument," he says, "is the only way to get everybody covered is if the government forces you to buy health insurance. If you don't buy it, then you'll be penalized in some way."
Well, John Edwards has just called Mr. Obama's bluff, by proposing that individuals be required to show proof of insurance when filing income taxes or receiving health care. If they don't have insurance, they won't be penalized - they'll be automatically enrolled in an insurance plan.
What Krugman doesn't mention is that the Edwards plan does say the government will use collection agencies and wage garnishment to enforce payment for the plan in which you are automatically enrolled. While there's no data on this option, I imagine it won't be too hard for insurance companies to equate this with a tax and use that to defeat any parts of the plan they don't like. What is the difference between the government sending my forced debts to a collection agency and sending me to the IRS? Isn't the IRS just a big public collection agency?
Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias have more.
Obama is being attacked over health care by both Edwards and Clinton, which is a slightly new wrinkle in the Presidential debate. As Chris noted, none of them have faced real attacks yet. This is especially true of Obama, who is still a cipher. It's not clear to me how an attack on Obama over health care and Social Security would go over. Based on what I saw during the residual forces fight, and the lack of movement against Clinton, it seems unlikely that policy differences matter. The blurring of the lines between the candidates on ideological differences means that this debate might be subsumed into the 'let's find someone who can win, since all Democrats are better than all Republicans' frame.
At the same time, if Clinton and Edward really make Social Security and health care an issue for Obama, that might be enough of an anti-Obama character argument to make a difference. That Clinton used health care in the debate to attack Obama and is pushing that in the press means that she might have polling suggesting as much. |
