40% Support Health Care Plan, 56% Oppose It

[toomuchtime_]

Fifty-six percent (56%) of U.S. voters now oppose the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the highest level of opposition found - reached three times before - in six months of polling.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 40% of voters favor the health care plan.

Perhaps more significantly, 46% now Strongly Oppose the plan, compared to 19% who Strongly Favor it.

Overall support for the health care plan fell to 38%, its lowest point ever, just before Thanksgiving. This is the fourth straight week with support at 41% or less. With the exception of a few days following nationally televised presidential appeals for the legislation, the number of voters opposed to the plan has always exceeded the number who favor it.

“The most significant detail in the data is that 63% of senior citizens oppose the plan, including 52% who strongly oppose it,” says Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports. “Seniors are significant in this debate both because they use the health care system more than anyone else and because they vote more than younger voters.”

Rasmussen Reports is continuing to track public opinion on the health care plan on a weekly basis, with updated findings released each Monday morning.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Democrats, whose legislators control both the House and Senate, continue to be the big supporters of the health care plan. Seventy-one percent (71%) of those in the president’s party favor it. Eighty-one percent (81%) of Republicans and 69% of voters not affiliated with either party oppose the plan.

But again the emotion is on the side of the opponents: Thirty-eight percent (38%) of Democrats strongly support the plan, but 74% of GOP voters and 57% of unaffiliateds strongly oppose it.

Health Care Reform - Rasmussen Reports™

 

[VaYank5150]

And still, it will get passed.

 

[California Girl]

And still, it will get passed.

Yep. And the backlash against the Administration will be mighty.... and Obutthead can kiss goodbye to his 2nd term.... along with any other DNC candidate. And we will get 4 years of some GOP tomfoolery. And so it goes on.

 

[KMAN]

Yep, it doesn't matter... As soon as the Democrats can figure out a way to buy enough votes it will be done... And the majority of Democratic voters who don't want the health care bill to pass will still vote Democrat the next election..

Anyone ever heard of BOHICA? Bend Over Here it Comes Again...

 

[toomuchtime_]

And still, it will get passed.

Some say that something will be passed because at this point Obama is prepared to sign just about anything he can get passed, but I think it will be passed in the same way one passes something indigestible and then flushes it away.

 

[beowolfe]

I'm for health care reform, but I'm not in favor of the plan that's being debated. Why? It's a hodgepodge of ideas that won't work smoothly together. Since the GOP doesn't want to play, the Dim's should simply craft something they can agree on (and that's the really hard part) and pass it. Screw the GOP that doesn't want to take its obligations seriously.

 

[California Girl]

I'm for health care reform, but I'm not in favor of the plan that's being debated. Why? It's a hodgepodge of ideas that won't work smoothly together. Since the GOP doesn't want to play, the Dim's should simply craft something they can agree on (and that's the really hard part) and pass it. Screw the GOP that doesn't want to take its obligations seriously.

I think everyone with an IQ of over 30 know that we need reform.... what we seem to disagree on is what kind of reform. Personally, I think the current plan is taking a lumphammer to crack a nut.

And extending the current plans to cover +55 is just bringing single payer in by the back door. That is a very, very, very bad road.... of this I am certain.

 

[saveliberty]

I'm for health care reform, but I'm not in favor of the plan that's being debated. Why? It's a hodgepodge of ideas that won't work smoothly together. Since the GOP doesn't want to play, the Dim's should simply craft something they can agree on (and that's the really hard part) and pass it. Screw the GOP that doesn't want to take its obligations seriously.

I think everyone with an IQ of over 30 know that we need reform.... what we seem to disagree on is what kind of reform. Personally, I think the current plan is taking a lumphammer to crack a nut.

And extending the current plans to cover +55 is just bringing single payer in by the back door. That is a very, very, very bad road.... of this I am certain.

Absolutely, that is why the Democrats went so quietly on the public option.

 

[beowolfe]

I'm for health care reform, but I'm not in favor of the plan that's being debated. Why? It's a hodgepodge of ideas that won't work smoothly together. Since the GOP doesn't want to play, the Dim's should simply craft something they can agree on (and that's the really hard part) and pass it. Screw the GOP that doesn't want to take its obligations seriously.

I think everyone with an IQ of over 30 know that we need reform.... what we seem to disagree on is what kind of reform. Personally, I think the current plan is taking a lumphammer to crack a nut.

And extending the current plans to cover +55 is just bringing single payer in by the back door. That is a very, very, very bad road.... of this I am certain.

I agree. If you're going to go 'single payer', go all the way. It definitely won't work in a half-assed way. If you're going to go private sector, then go all the way. Bastardizing either system won't give us the results that we're hoping for.

As for me, I don't see any logical reason why health insurance is in the private sector. All the insurance companies do is pool our money, taking a percentage off the top, while using some of it to pay claims. I'm of the opinion that that can be done better with a single payer system.

However, if you want a private sector system, then you have to ensure that you don't have monopolies in each state. And since the GOP can't seem to look forward, they didn't even considering fixing the private sector system when they had all of the reins of power. Now they want to whine because the Dims are taking a stab at it.

 

[EriktheRed]

Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has emerged as one of the harshest critics of what the right likes to call "Obamacare." After spending the first half of the year working with Democrats to find a bipartisan compromise, Grassley has spent the second half trying to prevent one. He attacks the bill now being debated on the Senate floor as an indefensible new entitlement. He complains that it expands the deficit, threatens Medicare, and does too little to restrain health-care inflation. At a town-hall meeting in August, the 76-year-old Iowan warned, "There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end of life."

One might credit the sincerity if not the validity of such concerns were it not for an inconvenient bit of history. Not so long ago, when Republicans controlled the Senate, Grassley was the chief architect of a bill that actually did most of the bad things he now accuses the Democrats of wanting to do. As chairman of the Finance Committee, Grassley championed the legislation that created a prescription-drug benefit under Medicare. The comparison of what he and his colleagues said during that debate in 2003 to what they're saying in 2009 exposes the disingenuousness of their current complaints.

The Republican Party's Health-Care Hypocrisy | Newsweek Newsweek | Newsweek.com