Initially polls showed a majority supporting health care reform. After the insurance industry and the Republican Party launched a massive misinformation campaign the polls became more difficult to evaluate. Polls would generally show a small majority opposing health care reform. When the polls broke down the reasons for opposing the bill they often showed that nearly as many people opposed the the bill feeling it did not do enough as believed it did too much.
Often polls showed a majority saying they opposed the health care reform bill while majorities supported the individual components of the bill. A majority even supported the public option which is not currently in the bill. Polls also showed that if the legislation was explained, support for the bill would jump by twenty percent.
Having Barack Obama campaign for health care reform has often resulted in bumps in support and we may be seeing this again. An Economist/YouGov poll shows that a majority once again supports health care reform while only 4 percent support doing nothing to change the current health care system:
• Barack Obama’s effort to breathe new life into the health care reform debate by hosting a bipartisan summit of Congressional leaders last week may have been modestly successful. There is a small margin of support for the health care reform proposals put forth by the Obama Administration, with 53% supporting them and 47% opposing.
• Americans agree that health-care reform is an important priority. Only 4% would prefer no change in the current health-care system and 12% are unsure of the best course of action. But opinion is split among the remaining 84% between adopting a comprehensive health-care reform bill (43% favor this option), or making a few changes to the current health care system (41% support this). While taking no action on health care is not an option for most Americans, three-quarters believe that the health-care system can be reformed without spending more money to do it.
