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MISCELLANEOUS NEWS ITEMS | |
NEW POLL SHOWS MAJORITY OF AMERICANS BACK PRESIDENT'S EFFORTS TO REFORM HEALTH CARE
March 09, 2010
(NATIONAL) -- Americans want health care reform and a new public opinion survey shows those lawmakers opposing it are way out of sync as large majorities of Americans want bipartisan cooperation on the health care/health insurance issue.
A new Associated Press-GfK Poll finds a widespread desire for improvements to the health care system. Half of all Americans say health care should be changed a lot or "a great deal," and only 4 percent say it shouldn't be changed at all.
But they also don't like the way the gridlock is playing out in Washington, where GOP lawmakers unanimously oppose the Obama-backed legislation and Democrats are struggling to pass it by themselves with narrow House and Senate majorities.
The AP-GfK Poll was conducted March 3-8, by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media. It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,002 adults nationwide, and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
More than four in five Americans say it's important that any health care plan have support from both parties, and 68 percent say the president and congressional Democrats should keep trying to cut a deal with Republicans rather than pass a bill with no GOP support.
The public also is not amused with Republicans' overall approach to legislating, giving lower approval ratings to GOP lawmakers than to Democrats, although both parties do not fare well with the public.
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said Tuesday that Republicans have played politics with health reform from the “very beginning."
The insurance industry lobby has spent millions of dollars to defeat reform and more spending is on the way. Major business groups Tuesday announced a multimillion-dollar ad campaign criticizing the President’s proposals.
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