After seeing a lot of the discussion about Obama's proposed individual insurance mandate, I thought I'd go poll hunting to find out more about public sentiment about mandates. It seems that the individual mandate gets broad support, until a fine for non-compliance is mentioned. Kaiser's presentation is especially clear on this point. Here's what I have so far:
2009 June Kaiser Family Foundation
http://facts.kff.org/...
2009 July NBC-WSJ (see page 24)
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/...
2009 July EBRI(see paragraph 6, page 3)
http://www.ebri.org/...
2009 July Pew
http://people-press.org/...
2009 July Gallup
http://www.gallup.com/...
2009 July Quinnipiac
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/...
2007 Pollster
http://www.pollster.com/...
2007 Consumer Watchdog
http://www.campaignforconsumerrights...
Where's Nate Silver when you need him? (I'm sure he's working on this right now, actually...)
If a bill is passed with an individual mandate--but without a public option--a huge majority of the people will rise up and sink the Dems next year. A mandate without a PO amounts to criminalizing people who either can't or don't want to pay into the private insurance profit coffers. That would be unacceptable to a large majority of Americans.
I hope someone can add to my list of polls, and that this starts a good coversation.