Over the past month, as August protests have fueled a barrage of negative and misleading coverage about his health care reform initiative, President Obama has suffered a significant decline in support among moderate Republicans and conservative-leaning independents (as well as a minor, though still noticeable, decline in support among liberal Democrats). This, as usual, has provoked another round of postmortems on the decaying corpses of health care reform and Obama's allegedly extinguished political career. And, as usual, these speculative proclamations are based on an absurdly superficial reading of the hard data.
In reality, while many are skeptical of Obama and his plans for health care reform, this otherwise bad situation is mitigated by two important facts:
- Americans still hate Republicans.
- Very few people really understand what health care reform is all about.
In regards to (1), it's also important to note that polling data (such as our own R2K poll) shows that Obama still has strong favorability numbers. This means that, while people may be skeptical about Obama's job performance, they still generally like him and, with a better message driving the health care debate, would still be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Along those lines, it's also important to note that Obama's high favorability would still translats to strong support in an electoral match-up. In a highly informative poll recently published by Clarus, Obama completely obliterates potential 2012 challengers:
2012 President
Obama 47%, Romney 38%
Obama 53%, Palin 34%
Obama 52%, Gingrich 34%
Obama 48%, Huckabee 38%
This is despite the fact that this same poll shows only 49% job approval and plurality disapproval of his handling of health care. This echoes recent polls by PPP that show that only the relatively popular Mike Huckabee has the favorables necessary to launch a potential challenge to President Obama, though it's worth further noting that, unlike the other potential contenders, Huckabee's background and ultra-conservative social and foreign policy positions have never been subjected to even a modest degree of public scrutiny.
But obviously, winning elections is only a fraction of the battle. The real concern most progressives have now is the health care debate. To be more precise, the concern is centered on the question of why support for reform plans struggle despite polls showing broad approval for those plans when they're raised outside of a partisan context.
Yet, contrary to the claims of right-wing pundits and analysts, the polls do not show decisive opposition to health care reform. While many polls show plurality opposition to the plans being proposed by Congress, almost every poll shows that a huge chunk of the voting population really has no idea what's going on.
So while a plurality of conservatives reflexively oppose reform, persuadable voters remain confused or simply misinformed about what it involves. The recent NBC News poll, for example, shows that a full 22% of voters considered themselves "Undecided" or gave "No Response" when asked about their thoughts on health care reform proposals.
An even more illuminating poll recently analyzed by Nate Silver underlines the profound influence that a lack of information is playing in the health care debate. In this poll, voters were given three definitions of the phrase "public option" and were asked to select which one they considered correct. These were the results:
"Creating a government funded insurance company that competes with existing private insurers to offer health coverage at market rates" - 37%
"Creating a national healthcare system like they have in Great Britain" - 26%
"Creating a network of healthcare cooperatives" - 13%
"Don't know" - 23%
According to the pollster, these numbers indicate that only 37% were able to identify the correct definition of "public option." Furthermore, only 26% selected the answer corresponding to right-wing criticism of the proposal. In other words, the vast majority of persuadable voters just have no idea what the public option entails.
In fact, the situation is even more dire, as this pollster doesn't really understand what the public option involves either. It is not "a government funded insurance company." It is, rather, a government-administered insurance program funded through premiums paid by policy holders.
And while this same poll shows 79% of voters responded favorably to the idea of "starting a new federal health insurance plan that individuals could purchase if they can't afford private plans offered to them," even this description is somewhat ambiguous in its description of the public option. However, it's no surprise that the proposal achieves such a high level of support when it is described as a system that voters buy into (as opposed to being a welfare program financed entirely out of the budget). Just as people like the choice of a public insurance program, people love the idea of a public insurance program that they won't have to pay for when they're not enrolled in it. Unfortunately, very few voters, even among Obama's supporters, know that this is a central aspect of the public option.
Taken as a whole, this data indicates that the problem with public support for health care reform is a problem of distorted and absent information. It is not a problem of ideological opposition to what's actually being proposed. This is illustrated further by a number of questions from the aforementioned Clarus poll.
When asked to describe Obama, 86% of independents described Obama as "very intelligent" while 58% described him as "honest and trustworthy." However, 47% also said that Obama "does NOT clearly explain his policies." Once again, the vast majority of persuadable independents think highly of Obama and would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. However, many of them have no idea what he's actually proposing.
How, then, do progressives solve this problem and inform independents that, in fact, they like what's actually being proposed?
First of all, we have to accept that the traditional media will not do the job for us. The American news media is driven by political gossip and managed by producers/editors who are resolute in their belief that "boring" policy discussions are simply bad for business. Moreover, most traditional media outlets feel compelled to "balance" factual analysis with purely speculative distortions.
Second, progressives need to do a better job of informing themselves about health care reform and learning how to present it in a manner that won't alienate independents. Do you know what an insurance exchange is? Do you know how the public option will be financed? Do you know that most of the bill's cost is a result of proposed subsidies? Do you know that Republicans support those expensive insurance subsidies but oppose using them in the most cost-effective way? If not, you should. If so, double check that you actually do before you make a slide presentation or web video misrepresenting Obama's health care reform plan.
Third, President Obama needs to step up his messaging game. Now, for anyone who has been paying close attention, this isn't exactly a new demand and, in reality, it's probably out of our control. However, it's always worth repeating that Obama's communications operation has always been absolutely abysmal, and while that was fine during an election in which we can rely on the ground game to get the job done, it's unacceptable in a drawn out legislative battle. As poll after poll shows, voters need to be informed about the true nature of reform in clear and simple terms. The occasional town hall won't do that. Ads based around vague platitudes or indignation at insurance companies won't do that. The only way to achieve this is by doing what any successful educator does: formulate a small set of brief, informative phrases and repeat them ad nauseam. And if you need Howard Wolfson to pull that off, then damn it, hire Howard Wolfson.
Fourth, as much as they enrage us, we need to stop giving oxygen to right-wing lies. If you're responding to a lie, you're still allowing the lie to dominate the debate, and while you may inform a skeptic about what health care reform is not, you won't really inform anybody about what health care reform is. And this is the fundamental problem with a reactive, entirely defensive approach to informing the public. While the lies definitely hurt, their impact is intensified in the absence of a positive, informative message about reform proposals. Ultimately, the best antidote to a lie about specifics is the simple truth about the general nature of the proposal in question. In fact, the vast majority of right-wing lies about health care reform can be decisively countered by informing someone that the public insurance plan will be optional.
Contrary to the spin of our ever-disingenuous punditry, skepticism over Obama's health care reform plan has little to do with some kind of inherent, ideological opposition to a government insurance program. Skepticism, rather, is primarily rooted in a lack of information about what reform actually involves. This is entirely understandable. If you don't have access to consistent and accurate information about something, you should be skeptical about it.
That being the case, the primary goal of all Democrats, from netroots bloggers to White House communications officials, should be a public that has a basic, accurate understanding of what's been proposed. While we certainly can and should pass health care reform regardless of public skepticism, we need to acknowledge that legitimate public skepticism remains our biggest problem.
Years ago, in his only diary on DailyKos, Obama made a very important point:
The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job.
This is true, but it's also true that designing such policies is the easy part of this hard job. In a democracy, especially one as broken as ours, the difficult task is that of the teacher responsible for informing the public about complex policy proposals. You can design a flawless blueprint for a perfect society, but it won't go anywhere if you can't show a skeptical population how it would work. Poll after poll shows that the public likes what the Democrats are doing. However, the Democrats have yet to convince the public that they're actually doing what they're doing. Surrendering to Republican lies won't change that. Educating voters will.